I learned a long time ago that silence can’t be intercepted, recorded, or used against the people I’m supposed to protect. Words failed me when it mattered most. I spent three weeks in a cell where every word I spoke brought someone else pain. Now I talk only when I’m certain the cost is one I am willing to pay.
“Gear up. Now,” Ace says as he moves toward his bedroom.
Rhodes grabs his jacket from the back of Ace’s couch where he’d left it earlier. I check my weapon, though I know I won’t need it, not for this.
Ace strides to the apartment door, now kitted out in his black cargo pants and a black hoodie.
“Masks?” Rhodes asks, holding up the bag we stashed in Ace’s closet after the park.
Ace nods sharply. “Bring them.”
We move through the hallway and down to the parking garage in under three minutes. I slide into the back seat, pulling out my phone to track her location. Rhodes takes shotgun, staring intently in the side mirror. I realize he is watching the building entrance through the gaps in the structure that show the street.
“There,” he says, pointing.
Maddie emerges from the shadows beside the apartment, looking both ways before hurrying toward the curb. She stops at the road, grabs out her phone, and her thumbs move across the screen.
Ace pulls the car out of the space slowly, keeping our distance, and we idle at the exit of the parking garage, watching to see her next move. Trying to escape is something she has done often. We track her to see where she is headed, and if it’s Riley’s or the studio, we call ahead, knowing they will keep her safe. It allows Maddie the illusion of freedom, though I normally follow and wait nearby in case she needs me.
“She’s calling a ride,” Rhodes says. “Uber or Lyft, probably.”
“Smart,” Ace mutters. “She knows we track her car.”
I almost smile. Smart, but she doesn’t know about the trackers in her camera bag or on her phone, both of which are standard protocol.
“How long?” Ace asks.
I check her rideshare activity on our monitoring app—another thing she doesn’t know about. “Three minutes. Black Honda Civic.”
We wait, and Ace’s fingers drum against the steering wheel, the only sign of his impatience. Rhodes is still, focused, already running scenarios in his head. I can see it in the way his eyes track the street, cataloging exit strategies and potential complications.
The Civic pulls up, Maddie slides into the back seat, and the car pulls away from the curb.
“Go,” I snap.
Ace flips on the headlights and eases into traffic, letting one car slip between us and the Civic. The tracker on my phone shows Maddie’s dot moving east.
“She’s heading toward the warehouse district,” Rhodes says, already having pulled up the map on his phone from her booking.
“Industrial area,” Ace confirms. “She’s probably found some abandoned building on Instagram.”
We follow them through three traffic lights. The Civic stays in the right lane, moving at exactly the speed limit. Professional driver. Good.
“Turning north on Morrison,” I report, watching the dot shift direction.
Rhodes zooms in on his map. “Shit. That’s all abandoned warehouses and factories. There are at least six buildings she could hit from her drop-off point.”
The traffic thins out the further east we go. Ace drops back, putting two more cars between us. We don’t need visual contact; the tracker makes this easy.
“They’re slowing down,” I say.
On my screen, Maddie’s dot crawls forward another hundred feet, then stops.
“Morrison and Sixth,” I report. “She’s stopped.” My jaw clenches as I watch her dot move from the road and then further inside the building. Yes, this is definitely her destination.
Rhodes is already pulling up Google’s street view of the location. “Old textile factory. Five stories, been abandoned for a decade. Probably rotted through in places.”
The building isn’t safe. We should shut this down right now. Go in without our masks and drag her ass home. But we won’t, both because she wants this, and because some fucked-up part of all of us wants it too.
