Chapter 11 The Refuge, New Mexico #3
“Honestly, I couldn’t do this without him.” Specs rested her hands on the top of the desk. “Between being almost as smart as I am about coding and all things computers, it’s been nice to have him around when I start to fall into that dark place. He brings me back to the present.”
“I’m glad.” Relief flooded through Lark. Jupiter had given Specs something she couldn't—someone who wasn't drowning alongside her. Someone who could be strong when Specs couldn't be. “I’m sorry I haven’t been there—”
“You couldn’t have pulled back.” Specs huffed out a breath.
“That’s not easy for me to say. You’re the closest thing I have to a best friend.
To family. But with everything that went down, if it was you being with me all the time, I might have really lost it.
” Specs swiped at her eyes. “I saw that building collapse, and I thought you were…”
“Hey. I’m right here.”
Specs nodded.
“And you did everything right.”
“Doesn’t feel that way.” Specs rested her fingers on the keyboard. “It brought up that last case from when I was with the FBI. Watching that psychopath and how he hurt those…” She shivered. “I couldn’t do anything to stop it”
“None of that was your fault.”
“No. But it really sucked, especially when it came to Jonah Carson,” Specs said. “This mission, losing our team, nearly losing you, brought all that to the surface. And it kills me that he’s still out there, acting like he didn’t do anything wrong.”
“You know the Feds haven’t given up.”
“Maybe not. But Jonah was able to destroy all the evidence. And according to my old contacts, for the last couple of years, he’s been a model citizen,” Specs said. “I call bullshit. There’s no way a sexual predator just stops.”
“Agreed.” Lark nodded. “Are you searching in places you shouldn’t for things Jonah might be doing?”
“No.” Specs shook her head. “You don’t need to worry about me going down that rabbit hole. I hadn’t realized the mission and my past had collided until Jupiter had to pull me from a cold shower where I’d been sitting and rocking for like an hour.”
“Jesus,’ Lark muttered.
“It was all very cathartic, and while I’m not necessarily okay, I’m exactly where I need to be.” Specs gestured toward her keyboard. “And I can work on this. I can do what we need so we can find out what happened to our team.”
“If you need time, don’t hesitate to pass things off to Jupiter and Ry.”
“I won’t.”
The computer dinged. And dinged some more.
Specs rolled her chair closer, eyeing the monitor with sharp precision. Her fingers tapped heavily across the keys.
“So, what’s going on?” Lark asked.
Specs didn’t answer right away. Her fingers moved with an eerie kind of grace, commands flying across the keyboard in bursts. Then her whole body went still. “Not exactly sure,” she whispered.
“It’s been an interesting morning,” Jupiter added from the other side of the room.
Lark couldn’t sit still. She wasn’t sure if it was Specs’ confession or how quickly Specs had dialed into whatever her machine was doing.
Lark paced in front of the desk, rubbing her leg.
She missed her damn fucking stress ball.
Stepping around the desk, she looked at the screens.
Not that she understood any of the lines of code that raced across the monitors faster than Roger Rabbit.
“We’ve been combing the dark web. Things pop up. They disappear. We can’t get a line,” Jupiter said.
“We’ve got one now.” Specs didn’t shift her gaze. “Only not from the dark web.”
Jupiter crossed the room, eyes narrowing at the screen. “That’s a military-grade encryption. Who the hell sent that?”
“No idea. But we’re about to find out.” Specs clicked, decrypted, and cracked open the message with surgical precision. Lines of code peeled away like skin, revealing something cold, quiet, and dangerous underneath.
A low-resolution image bloomed on the screen.
It took Lark half a second to recognize it.
It was the meeting. Her meeting. In South America. A wide shot—grainy, with poor resolution—but unmistakably from a corner in the market. From where Mina had been positioned.
“Is that what I think it is?” Kawan stood next to Lark and waved a finger at the screen.
“It sure is,” Specs said.
“Son of a bitch,” Lark breathed. “Was that taken from your system? Could that be what was sent to Lorre?”
“Could be what Lorre has.” Specs shook her head slowly. “But it’s not from my feeds. The angle is off.”
Jupiter leaned in. “See the timestamp?”
Lark narrowed her eyes. “That’s… ten minutes after the first comms blackout, but we hadn’t known it happened. The feeds were on a loop.”
Jupiter pointed to the tiny line of corrupted data running across the lower edge. “And whoever took it scrubbed their metadata—not that we can’t pull something, but it will take some time. Also, this was sent on a ghost route. Military-grade, maybe beyond. Specs?”
“I’m trying to triangulate. But…” Specs trailed off and clicked into the rest of the message.
The second part unfolded in plain text:
You’re not asking the right questions.
Not even talking to the right people.
Things are not as they appear.
I’m not your enemy, but the enemy is closer than you think, and she survived.
I have answers. But not here.
Truck stop diner. Route 14. Forty miles northeast.
3:00 PM. One car. Two people. No weapons.
Watch your six.
The cursor blinked under the last line. No signature. No sender. No trace.
Jupiter sat back. “I don’t trust that. Smells like a setup.”
Lark’s heart thudded as she digested the message… and its meaning. She glanced at the map on the smaller screen. “Route 14… that’s practically deserted. One way in, one way out.”
“Only three females on that mission, and based on the fact that the angle from that image was taken from where Mina was posted, I doubt our mystery sender is talking about me or Lark,” Specs said. “But they are implying Mina’s alive.”
“Or someone’s trying to make us think she is,” Jupiter said.
Lark didn’t respond right away.
Mina. Her easy grin. Her tea addiction. Her vegan lifestyle. The way she always tapped her boots three times before going on a mission, like some kind of silent prayer.
That angle… only three people could have accessed it. Mina, someone directly behind her, or someone with full pre-planning access to the mission who knew where Mina would be. That narrowed things down in the worst kind of way.
“Mina came to the team through Lorre, but I’d worked with her before. She was on my short list.” Lark stared at the screen. “They knew how to get our attention. And they want me there. That’s a message designed for me.”
“I’m going,” Kawan’s voice said behind her.
Lark turned to find him in the doorway. Arms crossed. Jaw tight.
“Of course you are,” she said.
Jupiter stood. “I’ll tell Thor and Lief. They’ll shadow trail. Eyes on the perimeter. You’ll have backup, even if they don’t want you to.”
Lark’s mind was already a hundred miles down that desert road. “Let’s gear up. No weapons, fine—but I’m not walking in blind.”
Specs looked up at her. Her voice was quiet but edged with steel. “Find out who sent it. But don’t go trusting ghosts. And if it’s Mina…”
“I’ll bring her home,” Lark said, and meant every word.