Chapter 32
THIRTY-TWO
It was the same damn garage.
Of course it was.
Dekker knew it inside and out. He’d killed Mira there. He’d walked away from her body there. And now he wanted Maren walking into the same shadows wearing her sister’s face.
Colin’s hands tightened on the wheel.
“They’ve installed new cameras since the accident,” Elissa said, obvious air quotes around ‘accident’ in her voice. “I’m in them now. No sign of Dekker, but there are plenty of blind spots. Which I’m sure he knows.”
Elissa had sent them a photo of Karl Dekker from years ago, before he started his second career as a cleaner. The man’s eyes were absolutely dead in a face like a bulldog’s as he stared straight into the camera for his DEA ID.
“Watchtower’s already en route,” Elissa continued. “He’s got orders to keep his distance, but he’ll be close enough for backup.”
“Do we know if Carr will even be there?” Colin asked.
“I’m tracking her through her phone. Her vehicle is heading that way.”
“Her vehicle. That’s not what I asked.”
“No,” Elissa said. “It’s not.”
Maren sat beside him, the envelope held against her chest. Her face was pale, but her voice was even. “It’s a trap.”
“We knew this was a possibility,” Colin told her.
“And we’re going to get out of this alive.
We get Carr. We get her to the secure location.
She contacts her person and delivers on her promise.
” His gaze flicked to the phone mounted on the dash.
“There will be people there to make sure of it, right, Ironman?”
“Believe it,” Elissa said. “Watchtower will be one of those people, and my old pal is very persuasive.”
“You say the sweetest things about me, Ironman.”
Colin recognized Malcolm’s voice. He’d met the man—Chicago accent, built like a brick shithouse, cold as hell. Absolutely devoted to his wife, Annalie, and to Watchdog. Lynn was in for a rude awakening if she didn’t cooperate.
Maren turned her head toward him. “Colin.”
He looked at her for half a second, then back at the road.
“I’m okay,” she said.
No, she wasn’t. But she was brave.
And she would be okay once he brought her home.
Colin pointed the SUV toward the garage where Mira Walsh was killed.
Beside him, Maren went very still like she was bracing for impact.
“Listen to me,” he said.
Her gaze shifted to him.
“When we get there, I’m not going to be gentle.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.” He kept his eyes on the road, scanning traffic, mirrors, storefront reflections, every vehicle that stayed behind them one block too long.
“I’m going to keep playing the part. If someone’s watching, they need to believe Kyle sent me to drag you through this because Watchdog is done with you.
That means I may grab you. I may shove you behind me.
I may say things I don’t mean. I want you to remember I don’t mean them. ”
“I know,” she said again, softer this time. “You’ve been doing that and it’s fine, I understand.”
She trusted him so completely it made his chest ache.
“If things go bad, you get behind the engine block, not the door. Car doors don’t stop rounds the way movies pretend they do.”
Her mouth twitched. “Good to know.”
“If I say down, you go down. If I say run, you run. If I tell you to leave me, you leave me.”
“No.”
He looked at her.
She looked right back.
“Maren.”
“No.” Her voice stayed quiet, but there was steel in it. “You made Juni a promise that you’ll bring me home. I’m holding you to it. But she also made me promise something later that I’m keeping.”
“Yeah?”
“That I bring you home, too.”
That almost broke him.
He looked back at the road because there was no room for the image of Juni’s pinkie hooked around his.
“All right,” he said. “Then we both follow the plan.”
“Okay.”
“And if I put you behind me, you stay behind me.”
“I’m very good at hiding behind large men when required.”
Despite everything, a laugh tried to punch out of his chest.
He swallowed it down.
Elissa’s voice came through the speakers again. “I just picked up Carr’s vehicle entering the structure. Dark gray Lexus. Level four. It’s her driving.”
“Any passengers?” Colin asked.
“Not that I can see. Dammit! I just lost her between two cameras, because apparently whoever designed this garage was actively trying to annoy me in the future.”
“Dekker knows the cameras,” Colin said.
“Yeah. That would be my guess. Okay, there she is. She parked near the northeast corner. Watchtower, I have you across the street, confirm.”
“Confirmed. Concealed across the street,” Malcolm said. “I’ve got eyes on the garage entrance. No visual on Dekker.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s not there,” Colin said.
“No,” Malcolm agreed. “It means he’s better at this than most people.”
Great. Fantastic. Exactly what I wanted to hear while driving the woman I love into the place her twin was murdered.
Maren’s fingers tightened around the envelope in her lap. Then she undid the string and opened the flap. She pulled out a long white envelope.
“There’s one thing I’m not turning over under any circumstances.” She held up the envelope. “This is addressed to me from Mira.”
So she did know Maren would be the one to finish it. Damn her.
“That’s fine,” Elissa said. “We’ll be going through everything and making copies before Carr gets her mitts on a single thing.”
The garage came into view at the end of the block—concrete, four levels, open sides. Vehicles parked in shadows. A bright San Diego afternoon outside and a man-made cave waiting inside.
Colin hated it on sight.
“Switching to comms.” Colin disconnected and activated the tiny comm in his ear. “Hailstorm here.”
“Ironman.”
“Watchtower.”
Good. Everything was working.
“What have you got for me, Ironman?”
“Ramp camera’s clean. First level looks normal. Second level has a delivery van parked in a terrible spot that I hate. Third level is mostly empty. Fourth level has Carr’s Lexus and about twelve other vehicles. Northeast corner, like I said. Nose out. Driver’s side facing the center lane.”
Colin’s mouth flattened. “She parked to leave fast, and not with us.”
Maren looked toward the garage as they approached the entrance. “Wouldn’t you do that as a backup plan?”
“Yes.”
That was the problem. Carr wasn’t stupid. She was compromised, terrified, and probably carrying enough guilt to choke on, but she wasn’t stupid. If she had parked nose out, she expected trouble.
Or she had been told exactly where and how to park.
Colin turned into the garage. The light changed immediately. Outside was California sun and inside was dim concrete, oil stains, pillars, echoes, shadows. The SUV’s tires hummed over the ramp. Somewhere above them, a car door slammed, the sound bouncing strangely between levels.
Maren flinched and he wanted to take her hand but resisted. If Dekker was watching, let him see the asshole Kyle had supposedly sent.
“Ironman,” Colin said. “Talk to me.”
“She’s still in the car.”
“Alone?”
“As far as I can see.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No,” Elissa said. “It’s what I have.”
Maren looked at him. “You don’t like this.”
“That’s for damn sure.”
“That makes two of us.”
He drove past the first level without slowing.
On the second level, the delivery van sat near the far wall, white, unmarked, rear doors facing the lane.
Colin clocked it, hated it as much as Elissa did, and kept driving.
No sag in the suspension that suggested it was heavily loaded.
No visible driver. No movement in the mirrors.
Still hate it.
The third level was mostly empty. A black sedan near the elevators. A blue compact by the wall. A truck with a surfboard rack. Shadows in the west corner where the camera wouldn’t reach.
Colin drove through, not looking like he was looking.
Maren stayed silent and alert.
Fourth level. The Lexus was exactly where Elissa said it would be, nose out, driver inside staring straight ahead into the middle distance, both hands on the steering wheel.
Lynn Carr.
The woman who had given Ray to Voss, who had helped bury Mira. The woman they needed alive until she could make up for those sins.
Colin had seen the photo Elissa sent. Neat haircut, well-cut pantsuit, perfect makeup.
She looked polished and in control, the kind of woman who probably knew how to ruin someone’s career with one email and then sleep just fine that night.
Through the windshield, she looked pale and smaller than he expected.
Colin parked two rows away, angled badly on purpose, like he didn’t give a damn about lines or courtesy or anything except getting this over with. He left the engine running and rolled down his window.
“Stay,” he snapped at Maren, loud enough to carry if anyone was listening.
Her chin dipped and she sucked in her lower lip.
Perfect.
He got out, slammed his door, and scanned the level as he rounded the front of the SUV—concrete pillars, parked cars, elevator bank thirty feet left, stairwell fifteen feet beyond Lynn’s Lexus. Open side of the garage to the right.
Too many angles. Too many shadows. Too many places a man like Dekker could already be settled in, waiting.
“Anything?” he asked under his breath.
“No movement,” Elissa said.
Colin opened Maren’s door. Her face was pale but her gaze was steady. He leaned in as if to yank her out, letting his body block sight lines for one second.
“You with me?” he whispered.
“Yes.”
“Package under your jacket?”
“Yes.”
“If I move, move with me.”
“I will.”
Then he grabbed her arm and hauled her out.
She stumbled deliberately. Good. Good enough that he almost steadied her even though he knew she was acting.
He hated every second of this.
“Don’t make this harder,” he said harshly.
Maren kept her head down. “I’m not,” she whined perfectly.
They crossed toward Lynn’s Lexus. Lynn got out before they reached her—slowly, carefully, both hands visible. Her gaze went to Colin first, then Maren.
And for half a second, she looked horrified.
She sees a dead woman’s face, Colin realized.