“I’m checking some of the databases for known FBI safehouses in the area as well,” she said. “Obviously, if they’re known, then we might not have much time to get there before...”
She didn’t need to finish her sentence. If Ezra wasn’t home, he’d been taken, and that would begin the chase to find him. My heart pounded as I climbed into the car, the intense leather smell filling my nose. I threw the file on the passenger seat—it spilled across it and into the footwell. Of course it had to go everywhere.
“I’ll direct you the fastest route to the apartment,” Runa said. “I’ve got traffic information up and ready to go when you are.”
I took a moment to myself, hands on the wheel, eyes closed a little, and just breathed. “I don’t want you going out on a limb here,” I told her. “You’re gonna get into some fucking deep shit when Mercy finds out.”
“If she finds out.” There was a light chuckle in her voice. “You know I’d go to bat for you. Any day, you name it. I might not be an agent out in the world, but I know so much stuff, I’m basically the intel version of you.” Now she was snorting back laughter.
I really hoped she was nothing like me. In reality, she knew me better than I knew her. I don’t think she even had a file, or in my case a filing cabinet filled with every single job I’d donefor Sanctum—every person I’d killed, every one I’d ever worked with and company I’d worked for. I’d probably worked for the people trying to kill Ezra. In fact, seeing the file in the passenger seat footwell, I knew I had. Big pharma company, doing their best to suppress evidence that said they’d released a drug that killed people—one of them could’ve been me.
I had to take that moment to breathe. I had to take in Ezra’s soft words, the ones he’d whispered to me while I was going through it.“It’s okay, it’s okay, just breathe.”
***
He wasn’t there.
His apartment smelled of the food I’d made, alongside the harsh chemicals they’d used to clean away the man who had lain dead in the doorway. I stomped around, unable to stop my heavy feet from doing their thing.
“He’s not here,” I said, pulling his dresser drawers open and seeing a couple things missing. “I need you to find out where his phone is.” All the calls I’d made to him stopped after a single ring—it was turned off.
Runa’s voice came through the comms, humming to me. I knew she couldn’t see where he’d gone, I knew there wasn’t going to be anything, and they weren’t going to hide him away in some safe house we’d know about. The FBI had known I was sleeping with Ezra. Maybe that was why they wanted to get him sooner—I was the unknown variable in their plan, the someone who might’ve been getting close for intel, for murder.
“I’ve got plates on a van outside. It’s pretty much an FBI van. I can keep an eye on it and see where it goes,” she said, her voice soft, as if lessening the blow. “You need to keep your head down, and so will I. I think Mercy is going to be angry—more so at me than you.”
“I’ll take the blame,” I said, walking around the apartment. The plates, the food, it was all there, everything looking the same as we’d left it. I sat on the edge of his bed, wondering what would’ve happened if I’d stayed over all those times he’d asked, wondering what would’ve happened if I hadn’t come looking for him or climbed into that tree. I hadn’t wanted to fall, be caught in a fucking bush filled with poison sumac. That shit fucking sucked.
“You don’t have to,” she said. “I know how to hold myself in front of her. I’m gonna keep track of this car. Make sure to keep your comms in. It’s the only encrypted channel we’ve got. If Mercy finds out, she’ll cut it off, and you deserve to know what’s going on, Jacques.”
It was touching that she called me Jacques. She was probably the only person to see the softer side of me over the years, and though so many other people had tried, most had failed. But Runa had succeeded, and she’d probably even had Sanctum on standby when I went rogue spying on Ezra.
Throwing myself back on the bed, I looked at the ceiling. There were little stars on it. I hadn’t seen them before. Even after being laid out on the bed most of yesterday, I hadn’t noticed those stars, an off-green color, or the letters. I’d exhausted all my energy. I huffed, going around to the other side of the bed and switching the lights off.
The words on the ceiling, in the faintest way possible said“reach for the stars.”I lay there for a moment, imagining how Ezra would’ve lain here, in bed, cozy, tucked up with his teddy, the one he’d... I reached out to the side, and between the side of the bed and the nightstand was his threadbare teddy. It almost lost a leg as I pulled on it, but I managed to grab hold of it completely.
“Oh fuck,” I said, holding the teddy. I couldn’t recall its name, though I knew he must have told me it. I stared into itsone glass eye with the other eye made up of a stitched X. “Don’t worry, we’re going to find Ezra.” I ran my thumb across the hard, darkened fabric of the bear’s nose. “You have any secrets you want to tell me about Ezra?”
I knew a lot about him already. Those super computers at Sanctum were better than any traditional background check. It was a little invasion of privacy, but I hadn’t looked into him too deeply, just enough to see if we were compatible, and I think we were.
***
A squeak came through the comms as I was eating the cold food in Ezra’s kitchen. “We have an address,” Runa said. “I also have more intel on the case. Did you finish reading the file you took?”
It was still in the car. “No, gimme the cliff’s notes version—or however you say it.”
She giggled. “Okay, the case is protection detail for the CEO of Nexovex. Victor Pemberton. Yeah, that Pemberton. Billionaire philanthropist whose social image seems to go unscathed, even after the scandals he’s been involved in about hiking up the price of pharmaceuticals.”
“And that’s who Mercy’s protecting?” I grumbled.Ezra’s teddy was tucked into the collar of my already tight T-shirt. I occasionally offered it little bites, but tried not to get any real food on it. Ezra would be furious, in the cute way he’d throw out a cuss word and screw up his adorable fists. I wasn’t really able to focus much. “And I’m guessing the protection detail involved blindly following any and all of Victor’s orders.”
She laughed again in the comms.
It was normal for people to think they could hire you and then have total autonomy over you—and sure, when the money was good, I’d let them use me as their weapon, but I had rules.I’d never kill someone who didn’t try and kill me first. And a lot of people had tried to kill me.
“Of course,” she said. “Do you have a pen and paper for the address? I’m pretty sure he’s there. That vehicle has been circling the block, and it’s in our database as a known safehouse.”
“Okay, hold on.”
“It’s a hotel apartment block,” she said. “One of those mixed unit things. You’ll have to find his floor and number quick. They’ll be onto you.”
