Seb threw his hands in the air. “Brah. I took the video to Wade—he called it fake. He told me to forget it, then confiscated my fucking drive!”
“How’d you… you know what, never mind.” Timber waved a hand. “Wade’s got a personal problem withfoxen. Thinks they’ve all got Khain bunking in their guest bedrooms.”
Seb shook his head, a disgusted look on his face. “What’s fucked up is this guy says a lot of things Wade should be interested in.”
“Like what?”
“Like the Tether. Heard of it?”
Timber shook his head.
“It’s invisible—” He pulled taut an imaginary cord between his hands. “This thing connectsfoxenand Khain. It makes it so he can find ‘em, then he marks ‘em, and then he controls ‘em. This Van Boeson guy saysfoxenprophecy about the Tether can be broken and they want it broken. Most of ‘em don’t want to fight for him.”
“Foxenhave prophecy? I mean… I guess if they have Citlali, they’re going to have prophecy, too, but that’s news to me. Does Wade kn—?”
Seb raised his eyebrows.
“Shit. We could go over Wade’s head.”
“To Burton? He’s cuckoo.”
Timber shook his head. “You ain’t wrong. Could be our little secret for now.”
Seb grunted. He didn’t care about protocol and orders. He cared about the mission, and about the truth.
Timber’s phone rang. He answered. “Go.”
“Wheeling, Rockford here. Dahlia Woodridge did live at that address a few months ago and we have a lead on where she might live now. Ready for it?”
Timber grabbed a pen and wrote the address down.
“Sarge, send someone out there for me asap, okay? We’ve got to find her. I’d go myself but I have a hunch I need to follow.”
“Will do.”
Motion on the security camera views at the front of the room caught their attention—Mac coming down the hallway, almost to them.
Sebastian stood up. He grabbed his drive off Timber’s desk and deposited the bag of snacks in its place. “Mahalo, brah. Later.”
He got up and loped over to the doorway, standing just to one side of it, looking like a big-ass wolf even as a man. Mac came in and Seb slipped out behind him. Mac sensed him and turned, then growled and followed Seb out.
Timber stashed the bag of snacks under his desk, opened the admin control panel for the building, hovering his mouse cursor as he watched Mac chase Seb down in the hallway. They traded a few words, then Seb showed his teeth and Mac raised his fists.
Timber didn’t wait until they started fighting. He pushed the button to trigger the sprinklers in the hallway. It worked—Mac turned murderous attention toward the door to the bunker and Seb sauntered away without a look around. Timber closed the program and got the hell away from his computer.
Mac steamrolled in the door, his hair and uniform wet, his nostrils flaring and his fists clenched. “Did you turn on the fucking sprinklers?”
“What? No. Anyway, look.” Timber waved the slip of paper. “I have progress on the One True Mate. Her last name is actually—”
“Woodridge,” Mac interrupted, flicking water out of his hair. “That’s what I was coming to tell you.”
“Shit,” Timber said. “If you knew, why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just got it. I still don’t know where she lives, or where sheis.” He pounded on the desk and pointed at Timber. “She diestonightif you don’t find hernow.” He turned to leave but stopped at the doorway and growled, “Where the fuck’s Canyon? I haven’t seen him all fucking day.”
“In the field, checking addresses.”
Mac eyeballed him like maybe he smelled a lie, but Timber had already moved on. He had a thought. If Canyon were here, he would try Predator, the new computer program. Timber switched to Canyon’s chair and computer, ignoring Mac, who eventually left. Timber’s fingers flew over the keyboard as he told Predator what was going on and requested the program cross-reference the latest address and the new last name.
