“Liam”—she draws out every syllable—“what don’t I fucking know?”
“Later, baby girl.” He flashes a smile over his screen at her. “Priorities. Let’s find Noire first.”
“What about Balzano?” I ask, steering us back on track. “Could she know about him?”
Wells’s head snaps up to me. “We should monitor his contacts and resorts in case.”
“I’ll be done with the music store quickly. Poor angles, andI’m guessing she knew where the cameras were, so I’ll take that,” I volunteer.
Celeste plops onto the couch beside me with another laptop. “Send me footage from the resorts, and I’ll comb through it too.”
Before I move on from the music store, a hooded figure, nearly out of the frame, grabs my attention. “This might be something. Nine thirty-eight time stamp. In the alley behind the store. Not much to see, but … it feels like her.”
“Give it to me,” Liam demands. “I’ll put anything that’s questionable on the wall monitors for comp images.”
We all search through our designated camera feeds until Celeste cuts through the silence again. “I have a fucking tracker inside me, don’t I?”
Liam nods, Celeste gasps, and Gage growls, ready to admonish any objection she poses, but I take it instead.
“We love you, Lettie. We do questionable things, but it’s always with the intention of keeping the people we care about safe. So, yes, your husband put a tracker in you. We all have one.”
There was a time when that felt like a violation, a line I was unwilling to cross. After Ivy was nearly killed, I caved. And once the girls were caught in the crossfire with the Skulls, I became a staunch advocate. It’s not a pretty reality, but it’s ours nonetheless.
“It was before the loyalty test,” Liam discloses without sparing her a glance. “While you weresleepingon the plane to Colorado. I told you we had a plan to get you out if you failed. That was part of it. Had to know if they moved you.”
“So something like this didn’t fucking happen,” Gage snarls, likely swarmed with the same unease we’re all stomaching as we realize our only lead is an out-of-focus hooded figure.
She didn’t just fucking disappear. Pain lances through my sternum, snaking through my lungs. This is what we do. We’ll find her. The question is when. We’re all aware that every minute missing is another mile into hiding. I can’t let my mind go there. I won’t.
“I called her,” Ivy says with a quaver, blasting into the office. “Over and over while I was checking on Felicity, but no answer.”
“That’s not surprising, Little Storm,” Wells responds in a soothing warble. “I’m sure she ditched her phone.”
“I gave her one,” she admits, and all of us flick our attention to her pallid face. “A burner. I wanted her to have a way to contact us in case … If she trusted us, she’d answer though. Right? This isn’t just rebelling. She’s been gone for fourteen hours now. She doesn’t want to be found or something went wrong. What if—”
And the wire finally snaps.
“Don’t fucking say it!” I yell. “No one does anything other than look for her. No one says anything negative. Not one goddamn word. We’re finding her. End of discussion.”
TY
She hasn’t visited another vintage record store—that’s the specific type of music shop she frequents. Not that I can find. There are about fourteen hundred across the country, and I’ve hacked into all the ones with security feeds.
Balzano’s resorts are playing on my wall monitors in a continual loop, so I can keep an eye on those checking in and out. Nothing there either. Liam’s office has the best tech setup, but I’ve upgraded mine over the last eleven days.
Eleven agonizing days. And fifteen hours. That’s how long she’s been missing.
As identity miners, we’ve rarely been called in on a case in the early days. This is where we thrive. Finding the leads others can’t. Even when the paths are ice cold in every direction.
But it’s a lengthy, grueling process. One that requires analytical precision and patience. It’s why we never get involved with clients. Emotional attachment clouds everything. We saw it happen withIvy during her trial for KORT. She ran circles around us because we were too close, too wrapped up in her pain to remove ourselves.
But knowing and doing are two different things. And pulling back isn’t an option I’m capable of entertaining. Rena is nowhere and everywhere at once—my only focus.
My incessant searching paid off with a flicker of hope. I located a hooded figure—like the one in the alleyway of Stereo Daze—outside of a Greyhound terminal. Smart. Due to the Noires’ affluence, we searched airports and car rentals first. By the time we’d worked our way into trains and buses, we were at the twenty-four-hour mark. And it took another several hours after that to identify the figure thatfeltlike her.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t tell which bus she boarded. So, we followed every route departing within a four-hour window from the time she was spotted. Nothing. I widened it to an eight-hour window. Still nothing.
Six days ago, while combing through Amtrak station footage from the various destinations those bus routes could filter into, I happened upon another figure that resembled Rena. New Mexico. No hoodie this time. The girl’s hair was styled in a short bob and dark. But it was the way the willowy silhouette moved. It’s a gait I’d know anywhere—the slight bounce to her step, as though she’s listening to a song the rest of the world can’t hear.
