He had a point.
“You can’t call Deveraux, Harper,” Carter said, all business now. “And even if James met with him, Deveraux’s never going to admit it. You’ll only make things worse.”
“I’ve got to do something, Carter.”
“Yeah. You stay put and go through the files.”
“That’s what I’ve been doing.”
“Then keep doing it. If he’s not back by midnight, then we’ll worry.” His voice went cold. “And I’ll start making calls at that point.”
“To who?”
“People who’d know if the Feds arrested him.” He paused. “Until then, we wait.” I didn’t answer fast enough, because he added, “Do not leave that hotel room, Harper. Promise me you won’t go hunting for his car or his phone.”
It wasn’t hard to guess what I wanted to do. But Knox’s people wouldn’t kidnap him. And if they killed him, they wouldn’t have bothered turning off his phone. The best use of my time was right here: digging through the files and taking notes.
“Fine,” I said, letting every ounce of my irritation show. “But if you hear from him, you tell me. Not like this morning, when he contacted you and you kept it to yourself.”
He was silent, then grudgingly said, “From here on out, you’re in the loop.”
“Thank you.”
“Oh, one more thing before I go,” he said absently. “Skeeter asked me to get you a new phone. It’s at the front desk, but I don’t want you leaving the room, so call down and ask them to bring it up.”
“A new phone?” I asked in confusion. “Does he think this one is compromised?”
“No, it’s a smartphone.” He paused. “With location tracking.”
I hesitated, my heart racing again. “When did he ask you to do that?”
“When he called asking me to send security to pick up Natalie’s family.”
Had he been planning to do something with a second hard drive before we met Dani and saw the video? Did that mean he wasn’t meeting with Mason Deveraux after all?
“He can see your location,” Carter said, sounding grim. “And so can I.”
“Okay,” I said, feeling numb. “I’ll call down. Thanks.”
We hung up and I called down to the front desk and asked them to bring up my package. Ten minutes later, I had a new smartphone, which had already been set up and activated. Carter’s and James’s current numbers were listed in my contacts. I set up call forwarding on the number I’d been using in case my contacts called or texted.
I took a few moments to pace the room. I wanted to trust James, and I did, to an extent. But I wouldn’t put it past him to try to confront Knox behind my back.
I sat down in front of the laptop and looked at the map of his phone’s last location. None of the businesses on the corners grabbed my attention—he could have met someone at any of those places—so I expanded my search, gasping when I saw a bar two blocks away.
The Brick House.
The bar he’d told me that Razor frequented.
I cursed a blue streak, then called Carter.
“You heard something?” he asked.
“I know where he went.”
“How? Where?”
I drew a breath to try to calm my nerves, but it did nothing to help. “I looked at the map again and zoomed out a bit. There’s a bar two blocks from his vehicle. The Brick House.”
