Chapter 39
Not Where She Should Be
WES
“Why the fuck is she there?” Alarm bells are ringing as I stare at the blue blinking dot showing Callie on the map in my spyware app.
“Maybe you don’t know everything about this woman. Maybe she’s hanging out with a friend.” Noah’s tone is light, but I recognize an edge of concern. Like he’s trying too hard to dismiss my question.
“No way.” I’ve been tracking this woman enough over the past month to know where her usual haunts are. Besides her brother’s apartment, she goes to the library, her friend’s bookstore, the grocery store, that one Irish pub, and a few coffee shops within a mile or two radius of there.
So why is she at a remote location outside of Portland?
And why isn’t her phone tracking? The spyware is picking up the signal of the slim tracker inside her phone case, not her phone.
“Her phone is offline,” I say without looking up.
“What are you still sitting there for? Let’s go.”
I look up from the hay bale. My brother’s standing there, waiting. He shifts from one foot to the other, and I recognize the worry on his face.
“Where?” I ask and shoot to my feet. Suddenly the flames are too hot on my cheeks, the laughing of families too grating, the night too dark.
“To find Callie. Obviously.”
“Together?”
“Lordy fuck. Yes. Just in case.” Noah gestures for me to follow. “I’ll drive. We can grab your car later.”
“Fine.” I follow Noah around the building and slip into the cab of his pickup truck. I send him a dropped pin and he connects his phone to the truck.
“Got it,” he says, and Red Daisy announces the first set of directions. Once he’s out of the parking lot, he floors it.
I send Callie a text, which goes unread. Unsurprising if her phone is off or dead. I click onto Gone and send her a message on that platform as well, just in case.
Maybe she’s blocked me, and that’s somehow interfered with the spyware? I wouldn’t blame her for doing so. She knows I don’t do well with boundaries.
Still, that’s not what this feels like. She’s in trouble. I can feel it in my bones.
I zoom into her location. The map’s satellite view shows a broken-down barn next to an abandoned-looking farmhouse, surrounded by thick woods and a long, skinny lane leading to a county road.
Something is definitely wrong. She should not be there.
“Thirty minutes away. Fuck!” I smash my hand onto the dashboard. “Can’t you drive faster?”
“First of all, respect Red Daisy. She didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Sorry, Red Daisy.” I sit back in the seat, but I feel like I’m crawling out of my skin.
“Second of all, I’m doing seventy-five in a fifty-five, and getting pulled over will not help us.” Noah glances at the side of my face, then at my bouncing knee. “I’ll get us there in twenty. This might be nothing, Wes.”
“It’s not nothing.” I turn to look at my brother, and he nods once.
We trust our guts. It’s something we’ve had to learn to do over the years, and that gut instinct often saves us from trouble. Noah sometimes pushes through and ignores the warnings, but I never do.
Noah’s phone dings with an alert. His forehead immediately creases, and he glances at the cupholder.
“What’s the look for?” I grab Noah’s device and look at the notification. It’s from the same tracking software I use. Without asking permission, I enter his password and click through.
It takes me a minute to understand what I’m seeing. There’s only one blinking dot on Noah’s screen.
It’s labeled JK.
Joe Killer.
I glance back at my phone, in my right hand, then back at his, in my left hand.
Joe Killer’s red dot is blinking in the same spot as Callie’s blue dot.
“Why the actual fuck is Joe Killer showing in the same location as Callie?” There’s a ringing sound in my ears that makes it difficult to focus on what Noah says in response. I feel like I’m floating above myself, being taken away on a wave of adrenaline.
The truck jolts forward, and Noah swears under his breath.
He knows the assignment.
Get to Callie as soon as possible, because she’s with a serial killer.
I focus on my breathing. My brother reaches over and squeezes my arm. The contact brings me back to the truck, and I fight to push the panic down. It won’t help Callie.
Why did I let her walk away? I should’ve refused to leave her side, even when she pushed me.
I should’ve at least stayed close and protected her.
No one’s ever protected her, and I just proved myself to be another useless man in her life who let her get hurt, when all I ever wanted to do was to keep her safe.
“Fuck!” I grind my teeth together. “Is it just some terrible coincidence that Joe Killer is targeting Callie? Did he know we were tracking him?” Even as the words come out, I know they aren’t true. I can’t quite make the connection. I’m almost there.
“No. It’s not.”
“Why is Joe Killer in Portland?” I drop my phone in my lap and clench and unclench my fists. My entire body is tingling, and I recognize it as spiked adrenaline ebbing in my veins as I fight back a full-blown panic attack.
“I have a theory.” Noah’s voice is low and dangerous.
“What, Noah?” I don’t know how he can sound so calm when everything is falling apart. “Fucking spit it out.”
“Okay. Check Shane’s car location.”
I click the box for Shane’s car tracker on my app, and his vehicle appears all the way down in New York City, where it’s supposed to be.
My brain is slowly connecting the dots. I don’t want to understand what Noah apparently already does. I block it out and squeeze my eyes shut.
“And?” Noah asks.
“He’s in New York.” But it’s not true, is it?
“His car is in New York.”
“Noah.” I push aside the cloud of denial and let the truth crash into me.
“Shane Robertson is Joe Killer,” Noah says simply. The car jolts forward again as Noah pushes the pickup truck even faster.
I let out a roar, and Noah swears under his breath.
“Did you have any idea?” I’m gripping the car door, willing the vehicle to fly and get to Callie faster.
“No.” Noah shakes his head.
Both of us contemplate what it means that we didn’t catch on to this.
“And he’s got Callie,” I finish my understanding of the truth with words that drive a stake of horror and fear through my heart. Shane is Joe Killer, and he has Callie in a remote location with her phone off. “Drive faster.”
Noah does.