Chapter 24
DANE
T he day drags like a corpse through gravel. I tail Langford's Porsche from his home to his office, from his office to lunch meetings, from meetings back to the office. The man's a fucking metronome—tick-tocking between the same locations with clockwork precision.
No Sarah. No secret rendezvous. No wedding ring sleight-of-hand.
Something's off. This sudden Boy Scout routine stinks worse than week-old fish.
I drum my fingers against the steering wheel, the steady tap-tap-tap matching the rhythm of my growing unease.
Either Langford made me and is playing it straight for show, or something changed.
Did he give up on Sarah already? It seems unlikely.
The angles don't add up, and in my experience, when the math gets fuzzy, something unpleasant tends to follow.
Sarah's face flashes through my mind—too young, too trusting.
Did she crack and tell him about our conversation?
About the PI asking questions, poking at his perfect veneer?
Smart money says she wouldn't—fear is a powerful motivator—but desperation makes people stupid, and young girls in over their heads with powerful men are nothing if not desperate.
Neither option sits well in the pit of my stomach, churning like day-old coffee and bad decisions. Man like Langford are sharks in custom suits who only show their teeth when they've got you cornered. And cornered predators don't suddenly find Jesus… They attack, then find new hunting grounds.
My phone buzzes. Claire Langford.
"Any progress, Mr. Wolfe?" she asks.
"He's being careful," I tell her. "Too careful."
"What does that mean?" The worry in her voice is palpable, like static on a bad connection.
"It means your husband's either reformed overnight or he's up to something. I'll find out either way."
Her sigh whispers through the speaker. "Should I be concerned?"
"Time will tell."
I hang up, my mind circling back to Sarah and her 'arrangement' with Langford. What arrangement? And why has he suddenly stopped seeing her?
A cold weight settles in my gut. The possibilities line up like spent shell casings. None of them good.
I call Milo.
"It's 6:17 in the morning," he grumbles. "Someone better be dead."
"I need you to find a particular Sarah at NYU."
"Jesus, Wolfe, do you know how many Sarahs there are at NYU? It's like asking me to find a specific grain of sand on Coney Island."
I pinch the bridge of my nose, feeling a headache building. "Blonde, about 5'6", probably a freshman. Saw her with Langford at Luigi's Pizza last week."
"Oh, well that narrows it down to only about a hundred blond freshmen named Sarah," Milo snarks. "You want fries with that impossible order?"
"Just do it, Milo. And make it snappy. I've got a hunch this Sarah's in deeper shit than she realizes."
Milo grumbles something about slave labor and hangs up. I return to my vigil, watching Langford's gym like a hawk watching its prey. An hour crawls by before my phone pings with Milo's data dump.
I scroll through a sea of young, hopeful faces. It's like flipping through a catalog of potential victims, each one a reminder of how fucked up the world can be. Then I see her, same wide eyes, same nervous smile.
Sarah Keller. Nineteen. Political Science major with a minor in theater.
Theater. Of-fucking-course. Because predators like Langford can smell dreams and desperation a mile away. They feed on it, twist it into something ugly and call it 'opportunity.'
I stare at her picture, wondering if she has any idea what kind of game she's playing. Probably thinks she's got it all figured out, using Langford as much as he's using her. But that's the thing about sharks in custom suits, by the time you realize you're bleeding, it's already too late.
My gut churns with a familiar cocktail of disgust and determination. Time to have another chat with Miss Sarah Keller before she becomes just another statistic in the grand tragedy of human nature.
I call Milo back. "Sarah Keller's the one. Find her for me."
"Now? I need sleep, man."
"Just find her," I say. "Hack her phone, trace her movements. I need to know where she is."
"Jesus, Wolfe. You don't think he?—"
"I think Langford's playing it too clean. I need to cover all my basis"
Milo's keyboard clicks rapidly in the background. "I'll get back to you."
While I wait, Langford emerges from the gym, freshly showered, suit immaculate. He slides into his car like he's boarding a spaceship—precise, practiced. I follow at a distance as he heads toward his office building.
My phone pings with Milo's text.
Milo: Her phone's pinging at Weinstein Hall. Room 512. No social media activity in last 48 hrs. Want me to keep digging?
Relief washes through me, immediately replaced by suspicion. I text back.
Dane: Call her.
Three minutes later.
Milo: No answer. Went to voicemail. But her location's steady. She's either there or her phone is.
That's the problem with tracking phones, they can't tell you if the owner's still breathing.
Dane: Keep an eye on her digital footprint. Let me know if anything changes.
As I follow Langford's car through morning traffic, I wonder what's going on with him. Men like him—narcissists, predators—they don't just stop.
The question isn't if Langford is still hunting.
It's who's become his new prey.
And I've let my guard down, spent too many nights with Lila's head on my chest instead of on Langford's tail.
Too many mornings waking up to her soft breathing instead of watching him through a long-range lens.
My surveillance has gaps you could drive a truck through.
Not to mention I've failed to bug his place—something I would have done last week if I weren't so distracted.
My focus has slipped. What did I miss while I was playing house? Who is he circling now, showing those perfect white teeth, touching his wedding band while he lies? Some new secretary with stars in her eyes? A waitress working doubles? A neighbor who doesn't know better?
The thought churns acid in my gut. People die in the blind spots, Dane.
I slow at a red light and watch Langford disappear into the gleaming glass maw of his office building. The city swallows him whole, and for a moment, I'm left sitting in my car—just a man, not a shadow. Just Dane Wolfe, not some avenging angel.
What the hell am I doing?
The question hits me like a round to the chest. Despite spending time with her, the case still pulled me away.
This is this time spent away from Lila—stale coffee, piss breaks in gas station bathrooms, and mind-numbing stakeouts—all to track a man who might be playing me and isn't nearly as awful as I suspect while I neglect what's actually good in my life right now.
I think about this earlier. Lila sitting on my lap at my kitchen counter, feeding me a bite of her favorite Boston cream from Sugar & Spice.
The way she laughed when cream smeared across my chin, how she leaned forward to kiss it away.
The sunlight catching in her hair, turning those auburn waves into fire.
"You're making that face again," she'd said.
"What face?"
"The one where you're thinking too hard about something dark." Her finger traced the line between my eyebrows. "Come back to me."
And I did. For those few hours, I was just a man enjoying his woman's company. No stakeouts, no stalking, no blood debts to pay.
But here I am again, circling the drain of someone else's depravity. Playing guardian angel to girls who don't know I exist or care. Hunting monsters to keep the nightmares at bay.
When did I decide it was my job to save every potential Gianna out there? When did I appoint myself the world's fucked-up warrior?
The light turns green. I don't move. A horn blares behind me.
My phone rings. It's Milo.
"Found campus security footage. Sarah left dorm two days ago at 5:43 PM. There's a gap in the footage, so no return recorded. She took her phone with her though. I tracked it pinging off other towers."
"Why the gap in the footage?"
"Could be several things. Camera maintenance, power outage, faulty equipment... or our rich boyfriend paying the right person to look the other way. Campus security isn't exactly Fort Knox."
Fucking perfect. The knot in my gut tightens another notch. I grip the phone tighter, decision forming like a bullet in the chamber.
"Keep watching that phone, Milo," I say. "I want to know the second it moves. Hell, if it twitches, I want a notification."
"What if it's just, you know, her sitting in her dorm watching Netflix?"
"Then you'll be bored. I can live with that." I pull a hard U-turn, cutting across traffic to head uptown. "I'm done waiting for maintenance windows and clean entries. I'm hitting Langford's brownstone. Now."
"Jesus Christ, Wolfe." The panic in Milo's voice carries even through shitty cell reception. "That's breaking and entering in broad daylight. In fucking Manhattan."
"Then I better not get caught." I weave between a delivery truck and taxi, ignoring the chorus of horns. "Send me everything you've got on the building's security. Points of entry, alarm system, cameras. All of it."
"This is fucking stupid. You realize that, right? The kind of security those places have?—"
"Then make it un-stupid," I snap. "You're the tech genius. Earn your paycheck."
A long pause, nothing but keyboard clacking. "You're going to jail, and I'm going to visit you wearing an 'I told you so' T-shirt."
"If I'm in jail, you'll be in the cell next to me. Accessory." I turn onto 72nd, slowing as I approach the block. "So how about we both stay out of prison?"
"Fine. But I'm logging this under 'idiotic shit Dane made me do' for my therapist." More typing. "Sending what I have now. Building has pretty tight security, but there's a window of opportunity. Garbage collection in thirty minutes. Service door at the east alley entrance."
I park three blocks away, pulling a baseball cap low over my eyes. Part of me knows this is reckless—crossing lines I shouldn't cross, risking everything on a hunch. But the other part, the part that still sees Gianna's wet, pleading eyes, doesn't give a shit about lines anymore.
Some sacrifices are worth making. Some sins worth committing.
Because I've met other men like Langford, and they don't just disappear girls.
They erase them—bit by bit, piece by piece, until there's nothing left but a shell with empty eyes.
I've watched it happen from behind my father's office door.
Hid in silence while monsters in expensive suits discussed the disposal of problems.
Maybe I'm taking my gut feeling about Langford too far, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.
"I'm going radio silent," I tell Milo, checking my lock picks and sliding a slim jim into my jacket. "If I'm not back online in two hours?—"
"I'll start looking for a good criminal attorney," he finishes. "Don't get arrested, asshole. You're my best client."