“What’s wrong?”
"Get Serena Delaire on the phone. I need an employee address—first name Nadiyah. I need it right fucking now."
She's already reaching for her phone. "Where will you be?"
"In my car."
I turn back toward the corridor, and that's when I see Beck emerging from his office twenty feet away. He's got his phone in his hand, his low voice in the midst of some negotiation or another. His dark head snaps up at the sound of my footsteps.
"Beck."
He ends his call and slides the phone into his suit jacket pocket. He's at my side in seconds. "What's going on?"
I show him Avery's text. Watch his expression shift as the words register.
"Her phone's going straight to voicemail. Gabe's running a location ping and scrambling a security team as soon as we know where she is."
Beck's jaw tightens. I can see him thinking, calculating, weighing options, considering angles. "We don't know what's happening yet," he says carefully. "Maybe before we go in with guns blazing—"
I bite off a sharp curse. "Something's happened to her. We're talking about my wife, Beck. My wife!" I don't give a shit about caution right now, or proper procedure, or whatever the fuck else he's about to suggest. "I'll burn this goddamn city to the ground if that's what it takes to find her."
Silence stretches between us.
Beck holds my gaze for one long moment. Then he nods. Once. The nod of a man who knows when the time for counsel has passed.
"What do you need from me?"
"Coordinate from here. Keep Gabe looped. I want you ready to call in the police. Be ready to call in the whole fucking cavalry on my go."
"Okay, Nick. Yeah, I've got you. Go."
I'm already in motion, heading for the executive floor elevator bank. Every step drags while somewhere across this city, Avery is on her own and afraid.
My phone buzzes in my hand. Gabe.
"I've got that ping for you." His voice is clipped, efficient. "Her phone's about a block and a half north of the rec center. Signal's stationary right now."
A block and a half north. Chelsea. The area takes shape in my mind, solidifying from fragments into something I can drive toward. The only lead I can chase for now.
Lily appears at my periphery, phone pressed to her shoulder. She's kept pace with me somehow, moving alongside me down the corridor with her heels clicking rapid counterpoint to my longer stride.
"I have Serena Delaire," she says. "She's got an address for Nadiyah Marchal." She recites it, the numbers and street name slotting against Gabe's coordinates with sickening precision.
It matches what I already know. Chelsea. Not far from the rec center.
I recite the address to Gabe, still waiting at the other end of the line.
"Gabe, you got that?"
"Got it. We'll be mobile in five minutes and heading there."
"I'll be on location in ten."
The elevator bank is ten feet away. Five.
I hit the button as soon as I reach the doors, and they slide open immediately, the car empty and waiting. I step inside and punch the down button.
"Hey, Nick." Gabe's voice cuts through the static of my racing thoughts. "Don't go in alone, yeah? Wait for my team."
