Chapter Forty-Nine
BARRETT
The second the words were out of his lips, I was out of my car, already reaching for my cell, looking for Sawyer's number as I tore down the sidewalk, slamming shoulders with a line of guys or girls deemed not beautiful enough to get right in.
It was amazing I heard the sound of Sawyer's machine through the pounding of my heartbeat in my ears.
The alley down the side of the building was littered with typical club trash: boxes from liquor bottles, wooden pallets, discarded trash, broken glass, a couple fucking up against the wall.
I noticed. Because I noticed just about everything. But it was all background noise to the idea of the Turkish mob knowing that Clarke had been spying on them.
I'd sent her in there.
This was on me, damnit.
The alley curved at the end as my finger hit redial for Sawyer, knowing it wasn't like him not to pick up on a second call even if he was busy.
I saw the car a split second before it peeled out of the alley, tires squealing.
Long enough for a make and three letters of the license plate.
I followed the path it took, knowing I would never actually catch up, but needing to know the direction it took if I was going to be able to catch it on the city cameras.
I was never usually a fan of big cities for the same reason I hated malls: crowded, noisy, smelly, bright.
But they had one thing over smaller towns. The sheer amount of traffic cameras just asking for someone to hack in and find what they might need.
Getting Sawyer's machine for the third time as I noted the street name they turned down before making a beeline for my own car, I gave up on him, dialing Brock instead.
"This better be good, Brainiac. I have a shot with a stunning redhead."
"Clarke was kidnapped," I bit out, hating the taste of the words in my mouth.
"Wait..." Brock said, tone serious, the noise in his background quieting. "What did you just say?"
"Clarke was just kidnapped. We're on a case. She was kidnapped by the Turkish mob."
"You're not fucking with me?"
"I'm not fucking with you. Get in your car and get to Philly. I will text you an address. Sawyer won't pick up..."
"He and Tig are on a plane. Something about a last-minute tip on someone they've been trying to track down for some billionaire client for the past three months. I had to hold down the fort."
There was a door slamming, an engine roaring to life.
"It's just you and me." It wasn't a question. Maybe more like a resigned statement, but he answered me anyway.
"It's just you and me. I know this sounds bad. I won't lie to you, it's not good. But we might be able to do this. If not, we can call in the local cops. Tell me what you know."
"I know she was trying to get information out of Emre, the boss’s second-in-command.
She was in a club with him. She had a listening device on.
There was no sign that he was onto her. But she's been working this case longer than I have.
She wasn't always invisible. He knew who she was.
He led her to the back under the pretense of a back room.
And then he said something about knowing she was watching them.
I didn't hear anything else from her. By the time I got around the back, they were peeling away in a car. I got a partial."
"I know you will be on that and the traffic cameras.
But tell me more about these guys." There was almost an eeriness to Brock's voice when he got serious, losing his usual levity, reminding you that he had served in the military, that he had done things many people would never know about, that his womanizing and his lightness were likely coping mechanisms, a way for him to handle those parts of his life, live with the dark sides of himself.
"Clarke was after the boss, but we honed in on his nephew. He was the one who called her out. But there were two other men in the car. I didn't get a good look at them. But I would figure they're low-level enforcers."
"And therefore likely more dangerous than Emre himself. What about him? Does he want to bring his family in on this? Show off that he caught someone spying on the operation? Or does he want to handle this quietly without anyone else knowing?"
That was a good question, something I hadn't really thought myself, something that indicated he did still have more experience at this than I did.
For once, it didn't sting.
If anything, all I felt was gratitude for his knowledge, for his time in. Because it put me closer to being able to find Clarke before anything bad happened to her.
"He is in charge of the security at their main headquarters," I told him, knowing that from Clarke's notes, never more thankful for the obsessive detail found within them. "I don't think he would want his uncle to know that he failed."
"That works in our favor. So long as we can get to her before they do anything permanent."
"Permanent," I repeated, already rushing back to the hotel, to my laptop, needing to get on the cameras as soon as possible.
"I hate to say this, but we kind of need to hope they are going to wake her up and, ah, question her first."
"Torture her first," I clarified, never the type to want his feelings spared.
Facts were important. Facts were what mattered.
They were likely going to torture Clarke.
I had to lock my feelings about that away and focus on what Brock was saying.
That it was good. That it bought us time.
For me to track her down. For Brock to get into town.
"Yes, torture her first. They are going to want to know who she is working for. If she's smart, she will fuck around with them for a while first."
"She's smart."
But she was new at this.
She would be scared.
In hindsight, she had been fidgeting, jumpy the whole way to the club. She had been having second thoughts about it all. But had tried to hide that from me. Why, I wasn't sure.
Being nervous meant she wasn't thinking clearly, logically. Physical pain on top of that was only going to muddy her thinking process further.
I shook my head, trying to knock those thoughts free. They would do me no good.
I wasn't even sure I closed my car door as I tore into the hotel room, heading for the steps instead of waiting for the elevator.
"How long until you're here?"
"Philly is an hour. If you do the speed limit. I'm pushing ninety right now," he told me, cutting time out so long as he didn't get pulled over. "Get working on your shit. You need to focus. Then when you have something, call me back."
"Right," I agreed, hanging up.
I'd worked a lot of cases in my career. Some of them under intense pressure, lives at stake. But never, ever before had my hands been shaking as I tried to type on my laptop.
Never had I misspelled words because my mind was somewhere else, forget the line of code that was always right there at the forefront of my mind.
I wasn't stupid.
I might have been a little slow to recognize my own feelings thing at times, too wrapped up in other things, too out of touch with the unpredictable inner workings of the psyche.
But I eventually figured things out.
Like the fact that I was out of sorts because I cared about Clarke, because this had a personal component, because I would never forgive myself if something happened to her.
Not just because I was responsible for her, because I should have had her back, because she was just a good person who deserved better.
But also because I would never get to have her around.
Because I wouldn't be able to experience the quiet, the calm she brought to me with her own brand of chaos.
I would never be able to see if there would be more to our interactions than work and shared meals and endless pits of useless information.
Taking a deep breath, I pushed the thoughts away, knowing the only way to help her was to do what I did best: focus. On the goal. On how to get there, all the little steps along the way.
Before long, I had slipped into an almost autopilot mode, doing things with the ease of practice, getting into the cameras, looking for the car, catching a glimpse of it on one, going to the next logical camera.
Over and over and over, street by street.
Until, finally, it stopped.
Disappeared.
In an old part of town full of crumbling buildings and little human life, save for maybe some kids up to no good, junkies getting high, or the unhoused calling the place home.
The kind of people who didn't call the cops.
Not even if they saw a woman being dragged out of a trunk.
Not even if they started to hear her screams a few minutes later.
No.
I shook my head, pushing that away.
That would do me no good.
By the time Brock arrived, I was down in the parking lot, nearly jumping into the car while it was still moving.
"You have an address?"
"I have a general area. We are going to have to go from there. The cameras in that part of town—if they even exist—are not operating. But maybe we can see the car."
"Hey, Barrett," Brock said as we drove in deafening silence.
"Yeah?"
"You're going to need to breathe," he reminded me. The air stung as I pulled it in, expanded my deflated lungs. "And I am going to need you out of your head and in the real world with me on this. There are only two of us. There are three of them. And we have a lot more at stake."
"I know," I agreed, nodding.
"Open the glove compartment," he demanded, watching as I pulled out a gun.
I figured it was his backup. He likely already had his own on him.
"I know you're not the best shot," he said.
It was a painful truth, but a truth nonetheless.
I couldn't be upset about it. "But you're not the worst I've seen either.
But things will be better if we don't shoot at all. "
"I know." But the reminder was somehow calming me.