Cam sat in the driver’s seat of the surveillance van, surveying the run-down bowling alley through night vision binoculars.The car they’d tracked was parked out front, right where GPS said it would be, and there was a light on in the main structure, but there was no visible movement inside, no other lights flickered, and no other cars came or went.Cam was starting to think the kidnapper was gone from this site already, moving Lette elsewhere.
He wordlessly passed the binoculars to Garrett, as had been their routine for the past hour.This time, however, Garrett set the goggles on the dash and fell back in the passenger seat with a huff.“She’s not in there.”
“Agreed,” Cam said.“But I want surveillance to confirm no heat signatures before we move in.I called in the drone.Should be flying over soon.”
“Those things aren’t foolproof.If there’s a basement...”
“Oh, I know.”Two months ago, he’d had a drone fly over a farmhouse outside of Boston, looking for a kidnap victim.The drone hadn’t detected any bodies, and the house had been clear of the suspect, but they’d found the victim, thankfully alive, in the basement.“But the drone will give us some indication of what we’re walking into.”
Garrett shifted in his seat, reached for the goggles again, and peered through them.The flurry of movement was consistent with the past hour in the car and with the other instances Cam had been in the same room with him.“You’re awfully fidgety for a Marine.”
“I did my share of recon, then I got in the air.Never looked back.Plane or chopper, I’m always in motion.This sitting-still shit”—he waved a hand in the air, gesturing around the car—“is for the birds.”
Cam chuckled.“One and only stakeout for you.Got it.”
“How do you do it?”
“Sit still?”
“Wait.”
Cam briefly took his eyes off the building to send a sympathetic glance Garrett’s way.“It’s your sister.You’re more anxious than usual.”
“How are you not?You said you understood.”
“I do, better than you think.”Cam’s gaze was back on the bowling alley, but his mind was in a different time and place.“My sister was taken when I was a teenager.She was twelve.It almost tore our family apart.It’s why I joined the FBI, to find her.And it’s why I do what I do, to try and save other families from the loss my family suffered.”
“Did you find her?”
“Twenty years later, thanks in no small part to Nic.And I will do everything I can to make sure he doesn’t go through what I did, including being extra careful how we approach this.”He pointed at the building.“In case she is in there.He’s lost enough already.”
Garrett raised the binoculars again, one more look, before handing them off to Cam.“So you guys make this work?Living and working together?”
Cam peered at the building through the green-tinted lenses.“We do.”
“But what if it craters this case?”
“It won’t.”Still seeing no movement, he dropped the binoculars in his lap.“It hasn’t.If anything, it’s helped us in cases we work together.Predictability in a world of unpredictability is a gift.When my sister’s cold case heated up again and I needed someone who could handle a delicate situation with Justice, Nic was the only person for the job, and not because I was fucking him.We closed fifteen cases that week, including my sister’s.We can use that to our advantage to find yours.”
Garrett propped an elbow on the car window, head in his hand.“This conversation is both reassuring and awkward.”
“That it is.”But it was also needed.To reassure Garrett they were doing everything they could and to reassure himself of his role in this at Nic’s side.“But you need to know I’m invested too, like he was in my sister’s case.”
“That’s good.”Garrett’s nod was cut off mid-motion, the soldier turning his ear to the window.
Cam heard it too—the drone passing overhead.“That’s good too.”He lifted the binoculars, tracking the drone as it flew a pattern around and over the building.After another couple passes, it rose into the clouds and disappeared.Cam’s phone rang a minute later.
“What’ve we got?”he answered on speakerphone.
“All clear,” Jamie said.“No heat signatures, at least in the part of the building the drone can read.”
“And that’s all of the building,” Lauren cut in.“I managed to get the demo plans from a very irate city planner.No basement.”
“All right, then,” Cam said.“Stand by for entry.”
“I want to go in with you,” Garrett said as soon as Cam ended the call.
Cam hesitated and Garrett jumped all over it.“There’s no one in there, but my sister may have left something behind.Will you be able to spot it?Know its significance?If it might be a clue?There’s no time to waste here.”
