17. Zoe
Zoe
Alpha Pig BBQ sits at the edge of Alpha Range like the town never fully committed to it.
Long low building, corrugated metal roof, wraparound deck overlooking a gravel lot full of pickups.
Mounted on one wall is the most ridiculous taxidermy boar I’ve ever seen.
It’s wearing sunglasses and holding a tiny American flag in its trotter.
A hand-painted sign underneath reads: “Oink If You’re Hungry.
” Smoke drifts from the chimney, thick with hickory and brown sugar.
I’m wearing a baseball cap Jax gave me, hair tucked up, and sunglasses that are too big for my face. Minimal disguise. Ryker says heavy ones draw attention. A hat and sunglasses on a sunny day just make me a woman who doesn’t want the sun in her eyes.
Ryker drove. Just us. Mason’s orders: two-person recon, low profile, in and out in under an hour. Observe and report. Don’t engage. Don’t let the subject identify me.
We’re at a corner table on the deck that Ryker chose the second we stepped out of the truck. Clear view of the interior through the glass partition. Direct line to our truck twenty feet away. Wall at our backs. Farthest table from the front entrance.
He orders the pulled pork platter and sweet tea for both of us without looking at the menu.
“Two o’clock,” he says, eyes still on me. “Blue Chevy coming into the lot. Three-quarter ton, aftermarket toolbox, chrome running boards.”
My stomach drops.
“That’s the truck. Different color, but the toolbox and running boards are the same.”
“He changed the vehicle or the paint. Same setup.” Ryker lifts his tea, takes a sip, sets it down. Perfectly casual. Nothing about him says federal officer. Everything says man on a lunch date. Only the slow working of the tendon in his jaw gives him away.
The truck parks. The driver’s door opens.
Tyler steps out and my vision narrows. My heart beat slams inside my chest, and I try my best not to look too affected by his presence.
It’s him. His hair’s shorter. Neatly trimmed beard that makes him look older and rougher.
Work clothes. Jeans, steel-toed boots, flannel with the sleeves rolled up.
Grease under the nails. He looks ordinary.
Like a man coming off a shift, hungry, heading into a place he’s been a hundred times. He looks safe.
My hands start shaking. I press them flat on the table. The tingling starts in my fingertips and I fight it with the breathing Ryker taught me, but the air feels thick in my throat.
Ryker’s hand covers mine. They’re warm and steady and I panic.
“Breathe,” he says, conversational, eyes on the menu. “He can’t see you from there. The glass is tinted. The hat’s working. You’re a woman having lunch with her boyfriend. That’s all you are right now.”
Boyfriend. The word is so normal it almost makes me laugh, and the almost-laugh breaks the panic’s grip. My breathing steadies. My hands stop shaking under his palm.
Tyler walks inside. Through the glass I watch him raise a hand to someone behind the bar, then slide into a booth near the front with two other men. Handshakes. Easy. Familiar.
“Two males at the booth,” Ryker says, lips barely moving. “White, mid-thirties. One heavy-set with a buzz cut in a Ridge Auto shirt. One leaner, better dressed. Collared shirt, clean hands. Not a mechanic. Watch his eyes.”
I watch. The lean man sits with his back to the wall. His eyes move the way every law enforcement officer I’ve met moves them, except this scan isn’t protective. It’s acquisitive. He’s counting the room.
“That man’s in the business,” I say. “He’s not eating. He’s shopping.”
Ryker’s hand tightens on mine once.
The food arrives. I force myself to eat. A woman who orders and doesn’t touch her plate draws attention.
That’s when I see the girl.
She comes out of the kitchen carrying a tray of sauces. Maybe twenty. Brown hair in a braid. Open face. Trusting. Eager. Wearing the same pig-logo cap and apron as our waitress. She’s nobody. But at the same time she’s everyone.
She’s me.
Tyler calls her over. She approaches with the service smile I used to wear. He says something and she laughs, tilting her head in the exact angle that exposes the throat and softens the jaw. The unconscious body language of trust.
He touches her arm. It’s light and brief.
Fingertips on her forearm. The kind of contact too small to object to.
I watched him do the same thing to me for three weeks before it escalated.
Light touch. Sustained touch. Hand on the small of the back.
Arm around the shoulders. Each step so small that by the time the door locks you’ve already agreed to everything that came before it.
She laughs again, and writes something on her order pad. Tyler watches her walk away with the expression of a man watching an investment grow.
I shut out the world because the rage is so total that if I don’t I’m going to walk over there and put my hands around his throat.
“Her name tag says Lacey,” Ryker says quietly. “I see it. We’re going to get her out. But not today. Today’s observation. Today we’re building the case. If we move too soon he disappears and takes the network with him and Lacey and every woman after her has no one coming for them.”
I know he’s right. I still want to move.
“I want to go,” I say. “I’ve seen enough.”
He signals for the check, pays cash, and we stand. Hat low. Sunglasses on. We move toward the truck. Four more steps and we’re off the deck. Three more and we’re at the door.
“Zoe?”
The voice comes from behind me. Young. Female. Surprised.
I freeze. Ryker’s hand finds my elbow. Keep moving.
“Zoe Parker? Oh my God, is that you?”
Another waitress. She’s got a ponytail and kind eyes. She’s followed us into the lot, face bright with recognition.
“I went to high school with Jenny Corbett, she worked at the Timber Creek Diner with you! She said you just disappeared one day. Are you okay? You look so different with the—”
“Wrong person,” Ryker says. He’s between us now, body angled to block her view. Friendly. Firm. Ending the conversation. “She gets that a lot. Have a good day.”
He opens the truck door. I’m inside. He’s in the driver’s seat and the engine is running in under four seconds. The waitress is still standing there, her expression shifting from excitement to confusion.
Ryker pulls out at exactly the speed limit. Eyes on the mirrors. I turn and look through the rear window.
Tyler is standing on the deck.
He’s come outside. Hands on the railing. Eyes on our truck. Even from this distance I can feel the quality of his attention. He’s watching us leave. Watching the waitress who called my name.
“Did he see me?” My voice is thin.
“I don’t think so. He came out after we were in the truck. Tinted glass. Hat. Sunglasses. He saw a vehicle leaving, not a face.”
“But he heard my name. She said it twice.”
Ryker’s quiet for a beat. His hands tighten on the wheel. “Yeah. She did. But he was inside. I’m not sure why he came out.”
He calls Mason on speaker.
“The subject is at Alpha Pig BBQ. Confirmed visual. Blue Chevy Z71, custom toolbox, chrome running boards. Meeting with two men, one a coworker from Ridge Auto, the other an unknown male, well-dressed, acquisitive demeanor. He’s actively working a new target.
Female, approximately twenty, name tag Lacey, waitress at the restaurant.
Grooming pattern matches the one used on our witness. ”
“Copy,” Mason says. “What else?”
“Near-compromise. A waitress recognized Zoe in the parking lot and called her name. I deflected, but the subject came outside during the exchange. He may have heard the name. He didn’t get a visual on her face. But the name is in the air now.”
A long silence.
“How soon can you get her to the regional office?”
“Two hours if I drive straight there.”
“Drive straight there. Dr. Engel meets her tonight. Full intake. And I’m putting a team on Lacey. If he’s running the playbook again we document every stage and build the case in real time. We don’t let another woman end up in a shipping container.”
The line drops. The truck eats the highway. I stare at the mountains rising on both sides of the road.
The door I keep seeing isn’t mine. It’s the one that’s going to close behind Lacey if nobody stops it.
“We’re going to get her out,” Ryker says. His hand finds mine on the seat. “I promise.”
I lace my fingers through his and hold on.
Tyler isn’t just recruiting Lacey. He’s rebuilding.
New identity. New location. New waitress.
New network. The operation that ended at the mine didn’t end.
It relocated, and it’s growing again in the shadow of a barbecue restaurant forty miles from the mountain where fourteen women were freed and one ran into the snow.
My eyes flutter closed. The dread sits heavy and cold below my ribs.
He’s doing it again. And this time he’s doing it with the confidence of a man who got caught once and learned from it.
The mountains shrink in the mirror. Somewhere behind us a girl named Lacey is clearing plates from a booth where three men sat and smiled and planned, and she doesn’t know what’s coming.
I do. And the knowing is the heaviest thing I’ve ever carried.