13. Tempest #2
His eyes hold mine. "No. I'm going to tell you we're getting her back."
My throat closes and I look away. Wrong fucking thing to say, because for half a second, all I see is her this morning, her hair everywhere, smiling at me. Me. Kai.
I close my hand into a fist and Ghost steps closer. "We're getting her back."
I look at him. "Then why the fuck are we still standing here?"
Rogue's laptop makes a sound; his head snaps down. "Because I just got the SUV."
Every man in the alley turns toward him. Rogue opens the screen fully.
"Traffic camera two blocks east. Black SUV entered the junction three minutes after Lilah's recording starts."
"Can you follow it?"
"I'm going to."
I move beside him, the image is grainy, but I don't give a fuck. Black SUV, right time, right direction, with her inside it. "Where's it going?"
Rogue's fingers move. "Give me a fucking minute."
"I don't have a minute."
"Neither does Lilah, so let me work."
That shuts me up, barely, but I keep my mouth closed.
Ghost's hand lands on my shoulder. I don't shake it off. I stare at the screen while Rogue moves to the next camera, and then the next. Find her, that's all there is now. Find Lilah.
Rogue takes over Lilah's kitchen table not even thirty minutes later, he’s got two laptops, her phone, his own cell, and enough wires to make the whole thing look like he's planning to launch a fucking satellite from her apartment. There’s still a smell of smoke within the apartment but the fire’s been put out, it didn’t do any major damage, just the door and a few minor furniture pieces.
But the door will be replaced and the furniture can be too.
I stay by the window, I can't sit, every time I look toward the table, I see breakfast; her coffee cup is still on the table.
Fuck. I should be out there, tracking her.
Less than an hour ago, she was sitting across from me laughing because I'd lost four games of rummy, but now, her phone is sitting beside Rogue's laptop, because she had enough sense while Evan fucking Calloway was taking her to leave it behind for me.
Ghost walks in with Savage behind him. "Talk to me," Ghost says.
Rogue doesn't look up. "I've got the SUV for six blocks. Lost it after that. I'm pulling every camera I can get south of here."
"Recording?"
"Copied it. Running the original now." Rogue tells him and everyone tenses, more waiting, and it’s time Lilah doesn’t have.
There’s a knock at the door; Savage checks the camera before opening it. He turns and looks at me. "Lorenzo."
I straighten as Savage opens the door.
Lorenzo walks in, his gaze finding me first, then it moves around the apartment, clocking the laptops covering Lilah's table, the cards still sitting in the living room, and two plates from breakfast. His eyes come back to mine. He understands. Of course, he fucking does. "What do you need?"
"I need her found."
Lorenzo pulls out his phone. "Then let's find her."
"Got something." Rogue's voice cuts through the room and every conversation stops.
I turn from Lorenzo and cross the apartment. "What?"
"I've been cleaning up Lilah's recording." He pulls one of the headphones away and turns the volume up on the laptop. "Listen."
Static fills the room first, but then Lilah’s voice sounds. "Let Jinx go." My stomach twists at the sound of her voice.
Evan comes through next. "You come down, he walks away."
I grip the back of the chair, I've already heard this. I heard enough of it through the phone. "Keep going," I urge.
Rogue does; there's movement, Lilah shouting, Jinx's voice somewhere farther away and then another man, it’s too low to make out, but Rogue rewinds it and plays it again. Nothing.
"Can you clean that up?"
"Trying."
He isolates the section and runs it again, this time the voice is clearer. "
"You were right, Evan. You knew she'd fight."
My hand tightens around the back of the chair.
Evan laughs. "Of course she'd fight, Marcus. She never likes to disappoint."
Rogue stops the recording.
"Go back," I say through clenched teeth. He does and the recording plays again.
"You were right, Evan. You knew she'd fight."
"Of course she'd fight, Marcus. She never likes to disappoint."
"Who's Marcus?" Ghost asks.
"No fucking idea," Rogue says.
"Webb?" I ask, it’s the only person it could be.
"Could be."
Rogue's already typing. "Give me a minute."
He pulls up Webb's information and then stops, his eyes narrow at the screen.
"What?"
Rogue looks at me. "Marcus Webb."
Savage moves closer. "So Webb was there."
"Yeah."
I look at Lilah's phone sitting beside the laptop. Webb didn't run, he didn't clear his office and disappear because he was scared. He went to Evan. He was made, knew he was done.
"Those two aren't done working together," Ghost says.
"No," I say.
I look at Rogue. "Find out everything you can about Marcus Webb."
Rogue's already typing. "Marcus Webb," he mutters. "Thirty-six. Licensed private investigator."
"Family?" Ghost asks.
"Getting there."
I stay behind him, watching information move across the screen faster than I can read it.
Lorenzo's phone rings. He steps away to answer while Rogue opens another window.
"Webb owns an apartment in Hartford. No wife, no kids. Business registered eight years ago." He clicks again. "Nothing connecting him financially to Calloway."
"But he was in that alley," Savage says.
"Yeah."
"So keep looking."
Rogue gives him a look. "What the fuck do you think I'm doing?"
Savage raises both hands. I barely hear them. My eyes are on Lilah's phone, her voice still in my head.
Let Jinx go.
Lorenzo comes back to the table. "We have the Pickup."
I turn. "What?"
"One of my guys found it on a service station camera."
Rogue abandons Webb's file immediately. "Where?"
Lorenzo gives him the location, and Rogue pulls up a map. "That's thirty-eight miles south."
"How old is this information?"
"Twenty-three minutes."
My pulse kicks. "Which direction?"
"South."
Sniper moves in beside him. "Route One?"
"Looks like it."
"Connecticut?"
Nobody says anything as I look at the map. Connecticut, where Lucy died, and where Lilah almost died. "He's taking her back," I say.
"Maybe," Ghost says.
I look at him. "He's taking her fucking back."
"I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying we don't know where yet."
Lorenzo's phone buzzes and he checks it. "Footage is coming through."
Rogue holds out his hand and Lorenzo sends it. The video loads, and the black SUV rolls into the service station and stops along the side of the building.
"That's it," Jinx says.
Rogue moves the footage forward where a gray pickup appears a minute later and parks beside it. The back door of the SUV opens, a man gets out. Marcus Webb. I know him from the surveillance photographs, then Evan, and then...
"Lilah."
Everything else disappears, she's barefoot, her hands are behind her back. Evan has one hand wrapped around her upper arm, but she's standing, walking, and she’s alive.
"Stop it." Rogue freezes the footage and I move closer. "Zoom."