I’m numb,and only Clementine’s purr against my chest is keeping me in the here and now. The drive back to the warehouse passes in a haze, my team talking around me, planning, occasionally asking me questions I don’t know how to answer.
Where would Alec take Q?
Why come after him now?
Can Q fight back?
Ryker elbows me in the side. “Graham? Did you hear me?”
Shaking my head, I focus on the man next to me. He has partial heterochromia in both eyes, patches of green, hazel, and blue swirled together, and the colors—along with the intensity of his stare—make it impossiblenotto listen to him.
“Someone’sread your texts to him, right?”
“Yeah.” Pulling out my phone, I unlock it and pass it to Ry. “If his anxiety is off the charts, sometimes he doesn’t respond to me right away, but…it’s after ten. We were supposed to meet at the little park at the end of his street twenty minutes ago.”
My boss’s massive fingers fly over the on-screen keyboard for a minute before he passes the phone back to me. “Add something uniquelyyou. Something this Harrow asshole wouldn’t notice, but Q would.”
It’s like he’s speaking a foreign language, and for a moment I just stare at the screen. Q’s gone. He might already be dead.
But if he’s alive, he needs you.
Pushing the panic aside, I take a breath and follow orders.
Quint? I waited at the park. Knocked on your door too. I’m worried. This isn’t like you. Please text me back or I’m going to call the police. My whole family’s in town, and they want to meet you.
I send up a silent prayer as I hitSend.
Two minutes later, as West pulls into the warehouse parking lot, the reply comes in.
Need some time alone. Everything’s moving way too fast. I’m fine, and I’ll call you in a couple of days.
Any shred of doubt I was holding onto evaporates into thin air.
“That’s not him. Hehatesthe name Quint. It’s what Alec calls him.”
Ry nods grimly, shoving at the door as the SUV coasts to a stop. I follow my team into the warehouse on shaky legs, one hand cupping Clementine and the other gripping my phone so tightly, I’m in danger of cracking it.
“Tell me you’ve got something.” West dumps his rucksack next to the table Ripper’s working at and starts peeling off his tactical gear while Inara motions for Raelynn to follow her to the supply cabinets. Ry taps his ear on the way to the showers, and starts demanding an update on the plane he requested.
Charlie trots over to me and presses his entire body against my legs. With a tinymrrp,Clementine pops her head out of my pocket and stares at the dog for a minute, then lets out a plaintivemeow.
“He’s not going to hurt you, sweetie,” I murmur, but she doesn’t need my reassurance. She’s purring like a little freight train.
Ripper leans back in his chair. “Still working on a location. Quinton’s place isn’t visible on any traffic cameras. Neither is the park, but we caught the same gray panel van circling the area more than once in the past three days. The plates were a dead end. Stolen a little over a week ago outside of Las Vegas.”
“What about Connor?” I ask. Needing to keep busy, I unpack Clementine’s litter box, food and water bowls, then set the fluffy round pillow on one of the couches in the little sitting area.
“He’s FBI. But they will ‘neither confirm nor deny’ that he works for them. At least according to Pritchard. He’s calling in a few favors to see if someone from the local office can track the guy down.”
West claps his hand on my shoulder. “Take a shower. Change into civvies and clear your head. It’s going to take us at least another thirty minutes to gear up and hopefully by then, we’ll know where we’re going.”
I start to protest, but he silences me with a single look. “That’s an order.”
* * *
Every seaton this private plane is plush, pristine leather. I don’t know how many favors Ryker called in, but this beauty was ready and waiting for us when we arrived at Boeing Field ten minutes ago.
“We got a location,” Ripper says over comms as West hauls the last of our gear on board. “There’s a three bedroom house registered to a Leslie Harrow in northern Utah. Sits in the center of five acres of nothing. Over the past three months, two construction companies have filed permits for that address to modify the basement, adding plumbing for a shower, toilet, and sink and dividing the space into two rooms.”
