“Ben. Go away. I’m fine.”
“You have three minutes.” He kisses me hard and quick, then walks away.
He doesn’t go far. I see him leaning on the wall around the corner and roll my eyes as I push the door. But something catches my attention through the small square window on the side entrance door.
A black cat…sparkly pink collar. Joan Wick. She’s outside. On the sidewalk. And she has on a harness. What the hell?
I don’t think, I pivot, shove through the door, and run to her, calling her name. A rope is attached to her harness, and she’s jerked into the alley roughly. I scream, and when I round the corner to where Ben parks, I feel a jolt of electricity through my body.
Before I can fall, I’m being jostled, and a weird voice blows in my ear. “It’s finally time, angel mine.”
Justholdon.
Ben
“Rewind it.”
Fitz goes back and replays the video of a man dragging a cat she clearly thought was Joan Wick across the sidewalk and into the alley. He hits her with a stun gun, then throws her into the back of a waiting open trunk and speeds away. The cat, who isn’t Joan Wick, limps away. Five seconds later, I appear. She was just fucking kidnapped when I was less than twenty fucking yards away. He threw her in the trunk of a car and took her.
The vehicle speeds away, and all I can think about is how scared Annie must be. What the prick plans to do to her. Who the hell is he?
“Again,” I bark at Fitz. “From the beginning, exterior four.”
He pulls up a different view, and we watch again as this motherfucker throws Annie in the trunk of his car and speeds away.
“Again, side by side of four and six.” I take a step back and chew on my thumbnail as I watch my nightmare playout in front of me. “Stop. Rewind seven seconds. Stop.”
Then I see it, him, what I knew all a-motherfucking-long.
“Poe.” I fume. “I fucking knew it.” I put my fist through the wall and swallow the shards of glass lodged in my throat.
“You gotta give me something, man.” Parker says.
“No shit.”
“Working on confirmation.” Fitz opens another screen, and photos flash so quickly they’re a blur, then a still frame with a thin green line around the guy’s face. The program is computing and working to make the image clearer, but I don’t need it.
I know that face. “Fuck me. I should have killed him when I had the chance.”
“Me, too,” Parker growls.
“I’m missing something. What am I missing? How did he find her?” I spike my fingers in my hair and release a frustrated breath.
“What do we got?” Drew asks as he rushes into the control room.
Fury has no place in a rescue mission because that’s what this is now. I’m taking slow, controlled breaths, trying to keep myself calm as I let my mind work.
I walk out to the hallway and pace, lacing my hands behind my neck as I try to make it make sense.What the fuck am I missing? I stared into that bastard’s eyes and told him what would happen if he even so much as looked at Annie again. Did he take that as a challenge? Was he getting back at me, or was my instinct right? How did he find her here? Was he following her? Tracking her?
No. Fitz made sure to sweep her car and apartment for tracking devices, everything was clean…but there was one thing we didn’t check.
I snap my fingers and hurry back into the crowded room. “Fitz. Can you search for a device signal in my apartment that’s not yours?”
“From here? Depends. What am I searching for?”
“Some kind of tracker he could have put on Joan Wick’s collar when he took her.”
“Damn.” Shep whistles.
