“It’s takin’ too damn long.” Hew raked a hand through his hair until it stuck up at the temples like devil horns. “I should be in the air, on my way to her.”
Eliza, perched on the table’s edge, tried for calm. “Wait until we hear back from the police. Then, if we need to, we’ll all go.”
Fisher padded barefoot toward the coffee tray, pulling a hoodie over his head as he went. He poured himself a mug, then raised an eyebrow at Graham.
“Yeah,” Graham agreed with a nod. “Pour me one, too. Jet lag’s fixin’ to catch me by the throat.” He’d been up half the night, but now all he wanted was to crawl into bed.
The gray light through the tall windows looked weak and tired. Dust motes drifted on the beams, but they were lusterless and lazy on this rainy morning. Outside, though, the city was waking up. A garbage truck groaned, somebody shouted for a cab, and tires hissed over wet pavement.
Such different sounds from the ones he’d grown up with. Birds trilling, bugs humming, chipmunks chattering under the porch of the old clapboard house in Rabun County.
Rabun County…
It’d been twenty years since he’d set foot back there.
Where does the time go?
But he knew. It’d gone to BUD/S training and jump school. It’d gone to missions and mayhem, blood and guts. And then, it’d gone to building a life in Chicago, to becoming part of the Black Knights Inc. family.
He took the mug Fisher handed him with a nod of thanks, grateful for the bitter burn of the coffee. It was harsh enough to strip paint, hot enough to cauterize wounds, and intense enough to wash away old memories.
“Should I call in the others?” Fisher asked. “They’ll want to know Sabrina’s missing.”
“We don’t know she is missing,” Eliza stressed. “She might’ve pulled off to sleep. It could be one big misunderstanding. Besides”—she caught Fisher’s wrist and checked his watch—“they’ll be here soon anyway.”
After the popcorn party, those who no longer lived on-site had loaded up and headed home. But thanks to the siren’s call of Eliza’s fresh-baked pastries, they usually strolled in again before seven a.m. to grab breakfast.
The sudden buzz of Hew’s cell phone shattered the momentary quiet. Everyone froze as they stared at the former Nightstalker in expectation.
“Wisconsin area code,” Hew rasped, peering at his phone’s screen with an expression that was a sick cocktail of hope and dread. Like a man waiting to hear if the doctors would give him a clean bill of health…or a death sentence.
They’d called the Wisconsin highway patrol an hour earlier, requesting a welfare check at Sabrina’s last known location. During every slow, painful minute since, Hew had bucked and bristled like a mule with a burr in his saddle.
Now, his voice snapped like a whip when he thumbed on the device and barked, “This is Hewitt Birch.”
Graham didn’t need to hear the other end of the conversation. The immediate devastation in Hew’s eyes told him everything he needed to know.
Sabrina hadn’t pulled over for a nap. This wasn’t some big misunderstanding. Hew was right. Something was wrong.
“What about tracks?” Hew demanded, jaw clamped down so tight that Graham could see the muscles' striations under his short beard. “Any sign she walked away?”
Graham’s gaze slid to the windows. Rain painted the glass in racing rivulets.
Too wet, he thought. If it’s this bad over there, even if she did leave tracks, they were washed away in seconds.
He watched Hew rest his cell phone between his shoulder and ear so he could resume pacing. “Is it possible she hit her head on the steerin’ wheel and wandered off into the woods in a daze?”
Hew turned back to the three waiting near the conference table and shook his head. Covering the mic with his palm, he repeated the information he’d been given. “She crashed. But not bad. No airbag deployment. No blood. No sign of a struggle.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” Eliza whispered.
But Graham wasn’t so sure. The knots in his gut told a different story.
They had been so confident that Sabrina was safe to go about life as usual. Sure that the heat from Charleston and the cartel had cooled. But maybe?—
“What about her phone?” Hew asked. “Is it with the car or—” He didn’t finish the question. It was clear the patrolman was already answering and Hew shook his head for the benefit of the others listening. He covered the mic and whispered, “They found it on the ground beside her vehicle.”
“Goddammit,” Fish muttered.
