13. Tempest #3
He does, the picture loses quality, it doesn't fucking matter. It's her, same clothes, same hair. My woman, twenty-three minutes ago, alive.
"Any sign she's hurt?" Ghost asks.
I scan every fucking inch of her I can see.
"No blood," Sniper says. "She's walking without assistance."
"She's okay," Jinx says. I look at him and he corrects himself. "She's alive."
Yeah, but that's all we know. Rogue starts the footage again. Webb opens the back door of the pickup, and Evan puts Lilah inside.
My hands curl into fists and the pickup pulls away.
"South," Sniper says.
The SUV waits, thirty seconds, and then a minute. It leaves in the opposite direction.
"Decoy," Ghost says.
Rogue is already searching for the pickup; Lorenzo lifts his phone. "I'll send the new vehicle details out."
"Wait." Everyone looks at me. "Webb."
Rogue looks back at the footage. "What about him?"
"Which vehicle?"
He rewinds and we watch again. Lilah goes into the pickup, Evan follows her, but Marcus Webb stands between the vehicles for a few seconds, but then he gets into the driver's seat of the pickup.
I look at Rogue. "He's with them."
"Yeah."
"So stop treating him like the PI who did the groundwork and got out."
Rogue's eyes meet mine. "He didn't get out."
"No." I look at the frozen image of Marcus Webb. "He was part of this from the fucking start."
Ghost turns to Rogue. "Get everything on Webb. Family, friends, property, schools, fucking parking tickets. I want to know why he's still helping Calloway when there's no fucking job left to do."
"On it."
Lorenzo sends the pickup details to his people, and Sniper drags the map closer.
I stay where I am, looking at Lilah. Twenty-three minutes, they're twenty-three minutes ahead of us, that's all. She’s not gone, she’s not lost, just ahead of us.
I pull a chair over beside Rogue. "Tell me what you need."
He glances at me. "Right now?"
"Yeah."
"Stop breathing down my fucking neck."
For the first time since I heard Lilah say Evan's name through my phone, something almost resembling a laugh catches in my chest.
I step back. "Better?"
"No."
I raise my finger and flip him off. "Fuck you."
"Love you too." His fingers never stop moving, but then again, neither do the rest of us.
I keep my gaze on the screen, where Lilah’s image is still frozen, while Rogue continues to work. “Don’t give up, baby, I’m coming. I promise, I’m coming,” I whisper.
About twenty minutes later, Rogue suddenly stops, not slows, stops.
I straighten. "What?" He doesn't answer me. "Rogue."
"I found something."
Every head in the apartment turns. Ghost moves first. "What?"
Rogue spins the laptop around. "Property outside New Haven, about twenty minutes inland. Bought eleven years ago by a Margaret Webb."
"Who is she?" I ask.
"Marcus' mother."
My pulse kicks. "And?"
"She died six years ago, property transferred to him after her death."
"Why didn't it come up before?"
"Because I've been looking for Calloway connections. This isn't one." He taps the screen. "It's Webb's."
Sniper comes around the table and looks at the map. "How far from the last camera?"
"Thirty-seven minutes."
"And the pickup?"
Rogue pulls another window across. "Last sighting puts them heading in the right direction."
That's enough for me. I stand; Ghost catches my arm before I make it two steps. "Wait."
"For what?"
"Confirmation."
I drag my arm free from his grip. "They have Lilah."
"I fucking know that."
"Then let go of me."
"Tempest."
Lorenzo stands beside me. "Kai." I turn on him, he doesn't flinch. "If it's the wrong property, we lose time."
"And if it's the right one, we're wasting it."
"Thirty seconds," Rogue snaps. "Give me thirty fucking seconds."
I drag both hands over my face. Thirty seconds, I can give him thirty, but barely.
Rogue starts typing again, and the room goes quiet: ten seconds, then twenty.
His screen changes. "I've got a camera."
I move behind him. "Where?"
"Convenience store two miles from the property." He pulls up the footage and there’s that fucking gray pickup.
My heart fucking stops. "Timestamp?"
"Eleven minutes ago."
Eleven.
Ghost is already reaching for his phone. "Everybody moves."
Chairs scrape back, Savage heads for the door, Sniper folds the map, and Lorenzo is on his phone before we even get to the door.
Finally.
"Tempest."
Something in Rogue's voice stops me. I turn and see that he's still staring at the screen. "What?"
"There's something else."
He rewinds the footage, the pickup comes into view again, it slows at the junction, then turns.
Rogue freezes the image. "Look at the passenger window."
I lean closer, there's something against the glass, a white piece of paper with four words written across it in thick black marker. Rogue zooms in and my blood turns cold.
COME GET HER, KAI.
Nobody speaks, fuck, nobody fucking breathes. He knows my name, not Tempest, but Kai.
The name I gave Lilah this morning, the name she called me in her bed. Which means this cunt has ears in this apartment.
I look at Ghost. “He knows."
Ghost's face hardens. "Yeah."
The smile that comes on my face can only be described as maniacal. "Then let's not keep the fucker waiting.”