Chapter 18
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Shadow gasped. It felt as if he couldn’t breathe, and he had no idea why.
He actually gasped, making Echo turn to glance at him.
“Shadow?”
But he couldn’t talk. All Shadow could do was close his eyes and put a hand on his chest.
It was the strangest sensation. He was breathing, but it still felt as if he wasn’t getting enough air into his lungs. A chill went through him. He didn’t know what it meant, but it scared the shit out of him.
He opened his eyes when he felt the car slow, and just as suddenly as the strange sensation of not being able to breathe began, it dissipated.
Jumping out of the back seat of the truck, Shadow ran into Brinley’s building and up the stairs, taking them two at a time.
He knocked loudly on her door, shifting his feet impatiently as he waited for it to open.
By the time his three teammates joined him, Shadow already knew that Brinley wasn’t there.
She would’ve opened the door by now if she was.
He turned to leave, but Grinder caught his arm. “Give her a minute. She might be in the middle of something.”
But she wasn’t. How Shadow knew that, he wasn’t sure, but he knew as well as he knew his name that Brinley wasn’t there.
“We need to go to the coffee place. See if her car is there.”
All four men jogged down the hall to the stairwell and were back in Kodiak’s truck in less than a minute. Shadow kept his gaze locked out the window as they drove toward where Brinley was supposed to meet her new client.
As soon as they pulled into the lot, Shadow could see that Brinley’s Outback wasn’t there. Disappointment hit him hard. On the heels of that was terror. Where was she? How was he going to find her?
“I’ll go talk to the employees in the coffee shack,” Kodiak said. “I see a security camera there on the corner of the building.”
“I’ll ask around and see if anyone saw her car,” Grinder volunteered.
“I’ll call Cypress,” Echo said, as he pulled out his phone.
Shadow got out his own phone and clicked on Brinley’s name, holding his breath, hoping against hope that she’d answer this time. But just like when he’d tried to call her from the field, and the ten times since, it went straight to voicemail.
Minutes later, a whistle from the coffee shack got his attention, and Shadow saw Kodiak gesturing for him to get over there.
He jogged over to where his friend was standing. “They’ve got her car on video. Right around ten, when you said she was supposed to meet her client. Brace, brother.”
Shadow tensed but nodded as he squeezed into the tiny space in the coffee shack, joining the two employees and Kodiak. All his concentration was on the small TV screen, which was frozen on an overview of the parking lot.
The young employee clicked a button and the images began to move.
Shadow watched intently as cars pulled in and out of the lot, and then he saw Brinley’s car arrive.
She pulled into a space near the back of the lot, probably so she wouldn’t take up any spots from those waiting to buy a coffee. She was considerate like that.
He forced himself to concentrate on the images playing out in front of him.
To the untrained eye, or to someone who didn’t know Brinley, nothing out of the ordinary seemed to happen. But Shadow knew otherwise—and every muscle in his body seized as he watched that video.
A man walked up to the vehicle, tapped on the window, and got into the passenger seat. Then a woman got into the back seat, and Brinley drove off.
The whole thing probably took less than two minutes.
The footage was grainy—but there was no mistaking the woman who’d slipped into the back of Brinley’s car.
“Play it again,” Shadow ordered.
The second time he watched the video, he kept his gaze glued on Brinley.
Even though she was parked a good distance away from the camera, he saw how stiff she looked behind the wheel.
The way she glanced over at the man next to her…
then down at something he was holding in his hand, before turning her gaze back to stare out the front window.
Shadow took a deep breath, his gut churning. “That’s Tamika. The woman who’s been harassing Brinley.”
Kodiak leaned in and squinted as he examined the screen. “Holy shit, Shadow. You’re right. I remember her. Wasn’t she hanging out with Brinley’s sister?”
“Yes. Tamika Black.”
“Fuck. Who’s the dude?”
“No clue. But at this point it doesn’t matter. We need to find them, Kodiak. Now.”
“Right. Come on, let’s grab the others. We need more help than we’ve got. We’ll get everyone we know to start looking for her car.”
Even as they were walking back to the truck, Shadow was shaking his head.
“There’s no way we’ll be able to find her fast enough that way.
You know as well as I do how big this state is.
It’s been over an hour since they’ve been here.
They could be holed up somewhere here in Fairbanks, but they could also be on their way to Anchorage, or they could’ve taken her to some vacation cabin in the wilderness. We need to track her.”
“But her phone’s been going straight to voicemail.”
By now, Echo and Grinder had joined them next to Kodiak’s truck and were listening intently.
“Right, so it won’t do any good to try to trace it.”
“So what are you thinking?”
Shadow took a deep breath. “There’s a guy other Deltas have mentioned.
Remember when we were on that one mission with the team from Texas?
I think Trigger was the name of the guy I talked to.
He told me a story about a guy named Tex Keegan.
Apparently, he’s some kind of computer guru.
He was able to help Trigger and several of his teammates when shit happened with their women.
Maybe he can help me too. Hack into the traffic cameras, the security feeds of businesses around here.
If we knew what direction they went, at least that would give us a place to start. ”
Shadow was grasping at straws. He didn’t know this Tex guy; why would he help him?
But he was desperate. Brinley was running out of time.
He felt it in his gut. He needed to find her.
Now. But he needed a starting point. Even the smallest hint could be the difference between finding her alive and not finding her at all.
“How do we find this Tex? Get in touch with him?” Grinder asked.
“Havoc Six,” Echo said, as he pulled out his cell. “I missed whatever was on the security feed, but clearly Brinley’s in trouble. The lieutenant colonel knows everyone. He’s been around long enough to have connections. I bet he either knows this Tex, or he knows someone who has his contact info.”
Shadow closed his eyes once more. Havoc Six had been Zamora’s nickname when he was an active Delta. He didn’t use the name often, but they’d all heard stories about how the man was chaos under control, and how valuable he’d been on the teams.
He heard Echo talking to Zamora, and Kodiak telling Grinder what they’d seen on the video. But their voices were muffled, as if he was hearing them from the end of a long tunnel.
He tried to put himself in Tamika’s shoes. What would she want from Brinley? She’d want her to regret not agreeing to work with her. She’d want her scared. Want to terrorize her.
But did she want her dead?
Shadow wasn’t sure. But he couldn’t get the image of the unknown guy out of his head.
Him being there wasn’t good. If he’d agreed to help Tamika kidnap someone, and had a weapon to make sure their plan worked, he was hardly an upstanding member of society.
And he might be willing to kill…if whatever Tamika promised him was worth it.
Brinley was in danger. Shadow thought about the scream he’d heard out in the field, and about the strange sensation of not being able to breathe, and he wondered if he’d somehow, inexplicably, experienced what Brinley was going through.
He shook his head and took a deep breath as he opened his eyes. No, he couldn’t believe that. It would break him. She had to be all right. She simply had to.
“Zamora says to get our butts back to his office. He’s going to make some calls,” Echo said, as he put his phone back in his pocket.
“He knows this Tex guy?”
“Not personally, but he’s heard of him. He confirmed that if anyone can find Brinley, it’s him.”
A bolt of relief shot through Shadow. Knowing there was someone out there who might be able to help them find Brinley almost made his knees buckle.
Yes, they could go to the police, and they would, but their hands were tied by rules and regulations.
Shadow knew better than most how sometimes, in order to have a successful mission, rules had to be bent.
If there was ever a time to bend some rules, it was now.
Brinley’s life was in the balance.
He could feel it in his bones.
She needed him, and he had no idea where she was.
But there was one thing he did know. Brinley was the strongest woman he’d ever met.
She’d survived a hellish childhood and had come out the other side with a spine of steel as a result.
She’d succeeded and thrived, despite how hard the people who were supposed to love her unconditionally had tried to keep her down.
She was a beautiful person, inside and out, and Shadow would promise any kind of marker this Tex guy demanded for his help. Nothing mattered but rescuing Brinley from the monsters who’d taken her away from him.
They’d pay—but his first priority was finding the woman he loved.
* * *
The first thing Brinley took note of was the silence.
For a moment, she thought maybe she was dead and this was Heaven. But when she turned her head, she could hear leaves crackling with the movement.
The second thing she realized was how much pain she was in. Just turning her neck hurt. Not just hurt, but an intense ache that was bone deep. And not only her neck, but everything. Her arms, her legs, her stomach, her face…