Tom attached his keyboard. "Let me see what else is on this phone. Even if the message is incomplete, there might beother data. Photos, GPS history, deleted files that didn't fully purge."
"How long will that take?" Cara asked.
"Couple hours, maybe less." Tom was already absorbed in the technical work, connecting the phone to his laptop through multiple adapters. "Phone's old and the battery keeps dying, but that actually works in our favor. There's way less sophisticated encryption on these older models."
Footsteps sounded on the exterior stairs, heavy and deliberate.
Gabe's hand moved toward his weapon before Wade's distinctive three-knock pattern identified them as friendly.
Reagan pushed through the door first, her face flushed from exertion and cold air. Wade followed close behind, moving with the controlled calm of someone still in operational mode.
"Everyone intact?" Wade asked, his eyes doing a quick threat assessment of the room before settling on Cara.
"We're good," Gabe confirmed. "How'd it go on your end?"
"Led them on a very scenic tour of the county." Reagan pulled off Cara's green coat and draped it over a chair with obvious relief. "Ruiz's motel first, just like we planned. We stayed there about forty minutes doing the whole investigation routine. Had the recording playing the entire time. They watched from the parking lot without ever getting close enough to realize it wasn't actually you two."
Wade picked up the narrative with typical economy. "Then we drove to three different locations from David's files. Made it look like we were following up on leads from the flash drive. They maintained surveillance the whole time."
Gabe absorbed that information and added it to his growing picture of the opposition. Organized crime with serious resources.
The kind of operation worth killing to protect.
"Wade shook them off about twenty minutes ago when we doubled back through the industrial park," Reagan continued. "By the time they realized we'd slipped their surveillance, we were already on our way back here."
Piper's grin was pure teenage satisfaction at successful deception. "So the fake fight recording actually worked?"
"Perfectly," Reagan said. "They bought the whole performance. Never questioned that it was really Gabe and Cara in the car having a breakdown about the investigation."
Tom returned his attention to the phone recovery process while the others settled into Cara's small living room. Reagan made coffee. Wade positioned himself where he could monitor the door and windows simultaneously. Piper returned to her phone but kept glancing at her dad's laptop like she was resisting the urge to ask questions.
Cara moved to stand beside Gabe near the kitchen counter, close enough that he could feel her warmth despite the careful distance she maintained.
"Thank you," she said, meant only for him. "For earlier. For not pushing."
"We'll talk about it eventually," he said, keeping his voice equally low. "But not tonight."
She nodded, something like relief crossing her features before she moved away to help Reagan with the coffee.
Gabe positioned himself where he could see Tom's screen, watching the technical work proceed. But he kept circling back to the same dark question he'd been avoiding for three weeks.
What if David was already dead?
What if all this effort, all this searching, was just chasing the ghost of his brother instead of finding him alive? Three weeks was a long time to stay hidden. A long time to survive if someone dangerous wanted you dead.
The burner phone sat on the table beside Tom's laptop.That unsent message David had tried to send before running.If something happens to me, tell Gabe that Dad was right.
Gabe's chest tightened with familiar fear he couldn't afford to acknowledge. He'd already lost his father to this investigation twenty years ago. Lost those years of grief and anger and questions that would never be answered.
He couldn't lose his brother too.
Please, Lord. Please let him still be alive. Let me be searching for my brother, not just his body.
"Stop." Wade's gruff voice cut through the spiral. He'd moved to stand beside Gabe without making a sound. "Trail's hot. That's what matters."
Gabe looked at him, pulled out of the dark thoughts by the blunt assessment.
Wade met his eyes with the flat certainty of someone who'd operated in worse situations. "Focus on the mission."
