Chapter 18
RAMPAGE
Dozer called back in thirty-six hours, not forty-eight.
Rampage stepped outside to take it, standing on the back porch in the cold morning air while the compound ran its breakfast routine behind him.
"Kansas City was a dead end," Dozer said, which was not what Rampage wanted to hear. "By the time the field office moved on the location, Delling was gone. Twelve hours ahead of them."
"He was tipped off."
"That's the working theory." Dozer paused. "The network has insulation at the federal level. Not deep, but enough to get a phone call to the right person at the right time."
Rampage looked at the tree line.
"Where is he now?"
"That's the thing." Dozer's voice shifted to the particular register of someone delivering information they found professionally interesting. "We picked up the trail ourselves. He's not heading further east. He turned around."
"He's coming back."
"Not to Colorado. To Kansas. We have an address to a property outside Wichita that connects to the network.
Ghost is already moving on it." He sighed.
. "And Rampage, Emily's statement, the detail about the hooks and the scuff marks.
The property search it corroborated turned up evidence connected to all four victims. Her observation is the thread that ties the whole thing together.
The hooks had DNA on them. We were able to confirm identities.
We think he was using them as anchor points. "
Rampage stood with that for a moment.
"She's going to want to know that," he said.
"Tell her. She earned it." He paused before switching gear. "Hunter is back. He and Ruby are coordinating with Diaz on the federal end. This is moving now. Forty-eight hours, likely less."
"And Delling specifically?"
"Ghost will have him." The certainty in Dozer's voice was the specific kind that came from having seen Ghost work. "He won't see it coming."
Rampage hung up and stood in the cold for a moment longer.
Forty-eight hours. Maybe less.
He thought about what came after that. Emily's apartment, three hours away, her real life waiting with its yoga classes, invoices and its book club and its normalcy.
He thought about the compound without her in it, the kitchen table at night with just his laptop and his cold coffee and none of the particular quality of attention she brought to a room.
He went inside.
She was at the kitchen island with Makenzie, both of them leaning over Makenzie's phone, some kind of heated debate about a book cover. She looked up when he came in. Read his face the way she'd been getting increasingly good at reading it over the last two weeks.
"News?" she said.
"After breakfast."
She held his gaze for a moment. Nodded.
"Cover looks cheap," she told Makenzie, like she hadn't just clocked the weight of what was coming and filed it away to deal with later.
"The cover is fine," Makenzie said.
"The font is doing too much."
"The font is doing exactly the right amount."
"Ladies." Irish appeared with Clover and a bowl of eggs. "Perhaps the cover debate can—"
"Stay out of it," both women said simultaneously.
“I’m sorry, is that how you speak to your Daddy?” Irish asked Makenzie. “I’ve given you a lot of leeway with Emily here, but I will not tolerate disrespect.”
Rampage watched Emily while Irish dressed down his girl.
He would do the same if Emily had talked to him the same way.
Makenzie had turned to apologize to Irish and he heard Irish say, “try that again, little girl.” But his eyes were on Emily.
A blush had crawled across her face, turning it a nice shade of pink.
Her hands went involuntarily to her butt.
Good.
Perfect reaction.
Savage came in, looked at the general atmosphere, and sat down with the quiet resignation of a man who had made his peace with being the only sane person in the room. That was until Savannah walked in a few minutes later.
Rampage poured coffee and watched Emily eat breakfast and thought about what the next forty-eight hours might bring.
He told her after, in the back hallway, just the two of them.
She listened the whole way through without interrupting. Her hands were still at her sides. When he got to the part about her observation helping identify victims, something moved across her face that wasn't quite relief and wasn't quite grief. Something in between.
"She earned it," she said quietly. Repeating Dozer's words back to herself. “All I did was tell the truth.”
"Telling the truth, being brave during federal questioning is a lot."
"The other women." She looked at him. "The evidence. It connects to all four of them. They know for sure now, it’s not just a suspicion."
"Yes."
She was quiet for a moment. He let her process.
"I couldn't sleep the first three nights because I kept thinking about what I'd missed. What I should have seen." Her voice was even, but the evenness was deliberate. "And it turns out the one thing I did see was the thing that mattered."
"Yes."
"That's—" She exhaled. "That's a lot."
"It is."
"I'm glad." She met his eyes. "I need you to know I'm genuinely glad that it helped. Even with all the rest of it."
"I know you are."
She looked at the floor. Then up at him. The morning light came through the window at the end of the hall and caught the side of her face and he had the specific, inconvenient thought that he would remember this exact moment forever.
"Forty-eight hours," she said.
"Maybe less."
"And then it's over." She breathed. "And I go home."
He held her gaze. "That's your choice."
She looked at him steadily. The look that saw through him in the specific way she'd been seeing through him since that parking lot.
"Is it?" she said.
"Yes," he said. "It will always be your choice. I will never force you to do anything you don’t want to do. I’m a big proponent of consent. However, I want you to stay. If you are willing. I know what I’m asking.
You have friends, your yoga studio… I won’t deny what I’m feeling for you, Emily. If you "
She nodded slowly. She was going to keep thinking about it. He recognized the look. He'd been watching her work through things all week with the same look on her face.
"Okay," she said. Then, quieter: "I don't want to talk about the going home part yet."
"Then we won't."
She nodded once more and went back to the kitchen.
He stayed in the hall and listened to her voice pick back up the cover debate with Makenzie and thought about the word yet.
Yet, was something to work with.