“She arrested me,” Max sighs. “Couple of years ago. Didn’t you, Baltmore? What’s the matter? Cat got your tongue?”
“No,” she says, straightening her spine. “But right now we’re here to find your sister, and this is crucial we do that in the next few hours. If Clare texted Payden at any time, we will be able to get a ping off of her phone and maybe get a location that way.”
It’s as though she has no clue we’re in the business of security and hacking.
We all stare at her, then Logan says. “I’ll call Sawyer.”
“Call Rock and Jett while you’re at it,” I bark. “Everyone needs to be on this.”
Brew places a hand on my shoulder. “Cash and the boys are en route. You wanna let five-o know?”
“Carl and Luke we can trust.” I glance up at Max. “Up to you if you wanna let your dad know. I doubt he can help, but he and Willow had this huge fight?—”
“I already called him. He’s callin’ in some favors,” Max says. “Pretty cut up about it after everythin’ that went down. I’ve never heard him sound like that before. Doesn’t ever excuse what he did. Or what you did.”
Here we go.
“WhatIdid?” I thumb toward my chest. “You knew too, or did you have a memory lapse?”
I can’t put this on him, but still. He’s a fucking wiseass.
“Just sayin’. I’m all for protectin’ her, but she was always gonna find out in the end.”
“Helpful,” I mutter.
If that was meant to make me feel better, it has the opposite effect, but it’s not Sinclair who can be blamed for this. It’s me. Max is right. I had the opportunity to tell Willow, I’m her fucking husband — the man who is supposed to keep her out of harm’s way.
“What do we do now?” Hally asks. “Just wait for the call? I can call it in, do something?—”
I know she cares, but it just grates on my nerves because I’m a gutless piece of shit who should’ve protected my wife better. I should have been the one following her. Had I known the Rooftop Killer could’ve been involved, obviously I fucking would have.
I want to scream, knowing it won’t do any good.
The entire station will be looking for her by now, and that’s a good thing. The more people looking, the more chance we’ll have of finding her. I just hope this Clare/Jane bitch still has her phone on her. Otherwise, where the hell do we start looking?
I begin to pace. “I need to think!”
Logan steps up to me. “Pull it together. This is Willow we’re talkin’ about, she’s one tough little cookie. She’ll figure a way out of this.”
“And what if she doesn’t?” I challenge. “Huh? What if she’s in real trouble, brother? What then? We don’t know where she is.”
He grips both my shoulders. “And actin’ hysterical won’t get us anywhere. Pull it together. Sawyer will have a match any minute now and then we’ll find where this chick lives and take over her entire fucking life, got me?”
“I can’t lose her,” I say quietly. “Not like this. We were fightin’. We both said some things?—”
“Things you can be sorry for when she’s back in your arms,” Logan says. “But not now.”
I never really picked my oldest brother as the pep-talk king, but he’s become better at it as the years have gone on. Growingup he was always good at giving me and Brew a slap around the earholes when we were misbehaving. He worked hard to help Mom when Dad just couldn’t step up. And in times of crisis, he’s level-headed, something I thought I was until this very moment.
“We only just got back together,” I ramble. “And she was so fuckin’ mad at me.”
“Stop feelin’ sorry for yourself,” Logan says with a little more force in his voice. “This kinda shit won’t get us anywhere. We need to focus.”
“Sawyer,” Brew says as he picks up the phone, has a ten second conversation then hangs up. “Confirmation Clare Jones is Jane Levich. Got her address, let’s move.”
“You good?” Logan says, looking like he’s ready to throw down, or at least bitch slap me.
I nod. “I’m good.”
