“But this is at least a thirty-minute walk,” I say. “Longer in a coat like that. Unless he sprinted—and he didn’t.”
“Exactly,” Grayson mutters.
“It’s another decoy, man,” I say. My jaw clenches. “It was staged. Just like the rest.”
He drags a hand through his hair, slow and rough. “We’ve been tracking a damn shadow.”
“Jesus,” I say, voice low, heart pounding. “That’s already a second guy pretending to be him.”
Grayson looks at me. There’s something unreadable in his expression, maybe fear.
“Chances are he just paid some thugs to take a walk.”
“Or he’s not working alone,” I reply.
A beat of silence passes between us.
If that bastard has people he can use like puppets, this just got even worse.
Grayson runs a hand over his face.
“Alright. Let’s go back to the beginning,” he says slowly. “He’s clearly doing all this knowing we’re trying to track him. But he had to go somewhere. If you were him, if this was your strategy, what would you do? How would you land the punch?”
Fuck.
I don’t know.
The possibilities are endless.
I rub my forehead, trying to think. Then my phone buzzes. I pull it from my pocket.
A message from Sabine:
Can you come home already? Something’s wrong. Mom didn’t come back yet.
My heart stutters.
Could it be...?
Grayson must see the shift in my expression. “What?”
“Sabine hasn’t heard from Mom.”
He straightens. “You think he—”
“I know he’s been in the house before,” I snap. “He’s been watching all of us. If he knew I was focused on Sabine, and then saw us chasing this bait...” I gesture to the screen.
“Shit.” He slams the laptop shut and grabs his keys. “Let’s go.”
An hour slips by in a blur of panic and motion.
We search every place that comes to mind, her usual routes, the grocery store down the road, the garden shop where she always lingers too long. We knock on neighbors’ doors. I pace the porch where she sometimes sits to chat. Nothing.
No one’s seen her.
Grayson calls in a favor to ping her phone. We wait, barely breathing.
He hangs up.
