Jethro sighed and put his phone in, stepping aside so Serena could do the same.
Force slipped his phone in the box, looking inside. “Good, Millicent. Yours is here. What now?”
She closed the metal box and locked it. “I’ll get your data off for each of you; contacts, pictures, and so on. Then I’ll destroy these.” She gingerly set it inside the cardboard box and drew out a basket of black phones. “These are burners. Each is already programmed with everyone else’s numbers, and you’re listed there by the last letter of your first name, except for Dana. Since she and Pippa both end with A, Dana is Y in your phones.” She handed out the innocuous devices. “Your number is on the back in case you want to give it to family or friends, but be careful there. They can be hacked, even if you can’t.”
Dana accepted her phone. She felt like she’d dropped into a spy novel. “Is this really all necessary?”
“Yes,” Wolfe said shortly.
All righty then.
Milly dropped the now empty basket back in the box. “Also, for anybody who has navigation or a service like OnStar on your vehicle, find something new to drive in the interim.”
Brigid leaned against Raider, circles beneath her eyes. “It was easy to find Pippa through the property records of her house. Same with Malcolm and Wolfe.” She rubbed her eyes. “I created a series of dummy corporations and transactions, dating them back a while, to muddy the waters and transfer ownership. That should help, but the record will always be there, so be alert.”
Wow. Dana tilted her head. She wanted to learn how to research like that. When things calmed down, she was definitely taking Brigid to lunch.
Brigid looked at the rest of the group. “You’re all easily found via your rental agreements. The best I could do was create new renters and file those online, hoping the owners don’t take too close a look.”
“Sounds good,” Force said, patting Roscoe’s head when he lumbered in.
Brigid shook her head at Wolfe. “The fake residence you set up in the abandoned cabin an hour from your real house is too obvious. Rock will know it’s a trap, so I transferred it out of your name, to a corporation, to another corporation and then another. He’ll be able to find the place, but it’ll take some work.”
Wolfe frowned.
Nari partially turned. “Is the place wired, Wolfe?”
“No. Figured I’d stay there until Gary made a move,” Wolfe said. “But now we’re giving him a target-rich environment, so he won’t come for me first. The cabin is useless.”
He had a cabin? Maybe they could fix it up when all of this was over—if they survived and managed to stay together. So far, they’d fought more than kissed, although the kisses had been spectacular. Dana tried to hide a yawn behind her hand.
“I’ll walk you out to Mal’s rig.” Wolfe held out a hand, his back-to-business expression firmly in place.
She sighed and took it. Dating him sure took a lot of patience and energy.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Wolfe loosened his arms, surprised at the tension coursing through him as he tugged down the brim of his baseball cap. He’d been on more ops than he could count, but he couldn’t let go of the dread in his gut on this one.
“Calm down, man.” Force walked beside him on the quiet residential street, his hands at his sides, a similar cap covering his head. “Mal will make sure nothing happens to Dana.”
“Rock, I mean Gary, might just blow up Mal’s house,” Wolfe growled.
Force shook his head, swerving around a fire hydrant on the sidewalk. “No. He won’t want to make that much of a splash yet. He’s going to pick your friends off one by one and prolong what he considers the game.” He kicked a couple of rocks out of his way, ducking beneath the boughs of a leafy tree. “From what he said to you, he’s got something else going on right now, and it’s probably the heroin. Once that’s taken care of, he will come.”
“You think he was buying himself some time?” Wolfe asked.
Force nodded. “Yeah. You spent all day fighting with Dana about protective custody, and if you’d succeeded, you would’ve spent at least the next day or two making sure the arrangements were up to snuff and getting her to cooperate.”
Yeah, that did make sense. “So you think she’s safe?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. Rockcliff is crazy, and from the autopsy report on Candy Folks, he likes to kill. Gets off on it. That kind of a compulsion won’t be tamped down for long.”
Wolfe’s hand clenched into a fist. “Don’t sugarcoat it.”
“I wouldn’t. You need full truth, and I expect the same.” Force turned the corner onto a street that still had people mingling at this early hour. Closed businesses lined one side and apartment buildings the other. They were brick buildings with established trees; many held pots of flowers or plants on the wide balconies.
Wolfe scouted the area. “Brigid disengaged the cameras across the street?”
