An hour later, the building was declared clear, and everyone returned to work. No one was any the wiser, and Cole didn’t believe for a nanosecond that it was just a coincidentally timed routine call.Someonehad tipped off the fire department to go in there and flush out Cole and Will.Someonehad been waiting for them outside.
Someone had known they were supposed to be there.
Cole flattened his palms on the cold Calacatta marble kitchen island and stared at Will’s back. The wind was tugging at Will’s hair and shirt in ways that shouldn’t have been that intriguing, and Cole hated howlittlehe was interested in just gazing at him and enjoying the view.
He was too busy trying to figure out if Will had crossed him, or if someone else was watching or eavesdropping.
Cole took a few deep breaths and thought through the six and a half hours it had taken for them to get from Montpelier to Bar Harbor. It had occurred to him several times that Will hadn’t used his phone. Even during long stretches of silence, he hadn’t thumbed through it to pass the time. In fact, the only time he’d brandished it at all had been when he’d whipped it out to take a photo of a lobster pound for some reason. Otherwise… no phone.
Cole supposed he could’ve used it in the restroom at that one gas station. And it could’ve been listening passively while Cole had driven.
But that didn’t explain how someone had also found the place he’d told Lilith about.
Unless…
Cold water trickled through Cole’s veins.
What ifhisphone was the problem? He was using a burner phone, but what if…
He rewound everything that had happened since they’d left New York. His device had never been out of his possession. It was also wrapped in so many layers of cybersecurity, evenhecouldn’t hack into it and add tracking software or something. And he’dtried.
It had to be something else. He flipped through every detail he could think of. Every step he’d taken. Every encounter they’d had with anyone.
And then…
Marcus was after them.
Marcus had sent Justin to meet Campeau instead of coming himself.
Things with Justin had turned physical.
After that, someone had known they were in Vermont, and now they “knew” they were in Larkinville or Strawberry Mansion. So far, no one had made any inroads on the Bar Harbor property, and Cole had alarms and sensors all over the place. If a moose farted within a mile of the fence line, he’d know about it.
So far, nothing.
So far.
He shifted his weight, wondering if maybe they weren’t as safe here as he’d thought they would be. What if there was some kind of tracker on his phone, or on one of them, or… Fuck. They couldn’t stay here. They needed to get rid of every stitch of clothing and every piece of electronics. Ditch the car. Ditch their?—
His head whipped toward the jacket he’d left draped over a chair.
Heart thumping, he crossed the room and dug into a pocket. When he found his passport, he yanked it free and thumbedthrough each page. Then he carefully felt around on the cover, and?—
His stomach clenched so violently, he was surprised he didn’t hear it.
He returned to the kitchen, pulled a pair of scissors from the knife block, and started cutting. And sure enough, inside the blue cover of his passport, he found a hair-thin microchip.
“Holy shit,” he whispered. It had been sealed beneath what looked like a passport page, but adhered to the inside cover. It didn’t explain how his phone was being tracked—how someone had known about his texts to Lilith—but it did mean they had bigger and more immediate problems.
His first instinct was to smash the circuit, but he froze. Maybe…
Yes. Good idea.
He bolted to the sliding glass door, threw it open, and said, “Give me your passport.”
“My—” Will blinked. “What? Which one?”
“All of them. That’s how we’re being tracked. Which means someone’s probably on their way here right the fuck now, and we need togo.”
