He ended the call and stood there for a moment, grounding himself. Andy looked up at him. Pale. Shaken. But holding it together. The kid had delivered when it mattered.
“Good work,” Brian said. “You did exactly what I needed.”
“At least we know what he took her in.”
He nodded. The stolen plate wasn’t necessarily a dead end—it was a direction. A narrowing of the field. Something solid to work with.
“Yeah.” He was already shifting gears, mapping the next steps he needed to take to rescue Tess. “And now we start closing the distance.”
Chapter 30
Twenty-five tense minutes later, someone knocked at the back door. It wasn’t tentative. It wasn’t frantic. It was sharp, controlled—the kind of knock that meant someone already knew what they were walking into.
The unlocked door swung open as Rafe didn’t bother waiting for an invite. He stepped inside, took one look at Andy’s face, and swore under his breath. “Fucking hell.”
“Hey, bro. And hey—kid I haven’t met yet,” Sean said as he strode in right behind Rafe, dropping a duffel beside the door and kicking it shut. The two of them must have broken speed records to get there so fast. “I’m Sean. You must be Andy.”
The teenager nodded once but remained silent, watching the newcomers like trust was something he couldn’t afford to give them yet. He already knew Rafefrom when he’d been brought in for questioning after being caught up with the gang members a few weeks ago, and that familiarity didn’t seem to help.
Not bothered by the low-key response, Sean crossed to the dining table and set down his laptop bag before quickly shrugging out of his black hoodie, his sidearm secure on his hip, ready as ever. He pulled the laptop out, and within a minute, he was set up, online, and working. The screen glowed as his fingers moved across the keyboard, mirroring the speed and confidence Andy had shown earlier. Brian watched his brother log in to the FBI database, then open a separate blank text document—nothing official, just a place to dump information as it came in.
Sean looked up. “Okay. Let’s go. Sit-rep.”
Brian filled them in, detailed but stripped down to the facts. Diego. Crypto. Coercion. Andy’s earlier IP job. Tess taken as leverage. Stolen van. Everything. Occasionally, he glanced at Andy to make sure he had it right. The teen responded with either a nod or a brief answer, using the bare minimum of words.
As he continued, Brian kept his focus on the intelligence, careful not to linger on Tess’s name. Thinking about her—about what she was facing—was something he couldn’t afford right now.
While waiting for Rafe and Sean to get there, he’d called Uncle Dan and given him the rundown. Once they figured out where Tess was being held, they would drop Andy off at Dan’s before launchinga rescue. Although the teen would undoubtedly argue about it, he’d be safe there.
Rafe paced, something he did all the time while getting the run-down on a new case. Sean listened without interrupting, his eyes flickering between Andy and the data already populating his screen.
When Brian finished, Rafe went still, hands on his hips, staring up at the ceiling as he mentally sorted through the information. At the table, Sean typed away, entering the pertinent details into the document. Brian didn’t interrupt either of them—they would speak when ready.
Finally, Sean lifted his head. “Okay, I pulled the call history from Andy’s phone.”
Brian leaned in to study the topographic roadmap on the screen. Two markers appeared almost on top of each other.
“The last two incoming calls came from the same cell tower—in Kingsby.” Sean tapped the screen.
Despite its regal name, Kingsby was a low-income stretch set just far enough off the main roads to Elizabeth City to be easily overlooked.
“Both phones pinged there?” Rafe asked from across the room.
Sean nodded. “Yup, and both are off now, so there’s no way to tell if they’re still in the same place. My guess is they are. We’re dealing with gang-bangers, not rocket scientists. They think they’re smart, but they always eventually make mistakes.”
Brian’s mind immediately started breaking it down—distance, access routes, places someone could hole up without drawing attention.
He pulled Andy’s laptop closer and glanced at him. “I can log into my work database without you capturing my user name and password?”
A nervous look crossed the kid’s face. “Uh, hang on.” He rushed over and nudged Brian out of the way. After a few quick clicks and tapping of keys, he stepped back again. “You’re all good. I swear, it won’t record anything.”
Brian stared at him, ninety-nine percent sure he was telling the truth, but that one percent still made him wary. Andy bit his bottom lip and glanced around the room before meeting Brian’s gaze. “I swear!”
“Stop saying that,” he snapped. “It’s annoying.”
“Sorry. But if you don’t trust me, you can change your password later. Just—just save Tess. Please.”
With a single nod, Brian moved the laptop across the table and sat in the chair beside his brother. He logged into the NCSP website, making sure the“Remember Me on This Computer” box was unchecked. “Let’s overlay Devil’s Crew known locations in that area.”
