The instinct to retch nearly knocked Emory off his feet. He covered his mouth with a balled fist and stared at the expiring sun to burn away emergent tears. Mirabelle quietly cried and clutched her middle. Uncertain who to comfort, the men gathered around but didn’t pick sides.
Emory’s phone chimed with a text from Disco.Nada from the plates be there in 20.
“Nothing from the plates,” Emory announced.
Frustration coursed through him and coiled on itself with gathering pressure. They should be moving, doing something, not standing on the side of that fucking wasteland. Jaw clenched, his breaths shortened to ragged huffs, and his teeth ground together. Emory hurled toward his car. His fist smashed into the window and the glass starred beneath the brutal force. Pete wrangled him by the shoulders before Emory could deliver another hit.
“We’re gonna find her,” he said with certainty he had no right to.
Emory searched for doubt in Pete’s eyes, that fracture in faith he could point to and justify the dalliance in darkness.
“Zules,” Pete called out. “If you can trace Dauer’s cell, you can get a location, right?”
With all eyes on him, Zulu stood tall and squared hisshoulders. He was so young, Emory noticed for the first time. The boy’s combat boots, camo shorts, and torn-up Motörhead t-shirt did little to give the appearance of age.
“Yeah, that part’s easy, but if his phone has been off…”
The thought hung in dead air.
“If his phone is off, what?” Corey asked. “We got nothing?”
Zulu shook his head. “Not necessarily. I could try to link devices that’ve connected to the same network as Richard’s cell. It’d help expand leads.”
With renewed promise, Emory waved Zulu to the car but didn’t wait for him to jog over. He pulled pieces of gear from the trunk—laptop, switch box, cables, and an assortment of other shit that didn’t mean a damn thing to him as long as it worked.
“I don’t care how you do it,” Emory said, “but I need you to find Richard Dauer. Can you do that?”
“Yes, sir.”
Zulu made quick work of setting up his gear. Leaned against the car, Emory evaluated the sun skimming the horizon. They’d lose light soon, and that meant losing time and a whole host of other precious things. If he thought of it too long, the frenzy would begin again, so he quarantined that part of himself as Zulu pecked at the keyboard.
Liam settled next to Emory. Jack consoled Mirabelle, who sat on the ground and cradled her knees. Pete paced in front of the car, and Corey chain-smoked through a pack of Marlboros. When Disco showed up, he and Thomas agreed to take Mirabelle back to Liam’s and wait there for orders.
“Alright, his cell was pinging nearby,” Zulu said not long after Disco left. “Shit. That was hours ago.” He tapped at the keyboard and waited, fingers hovering over the keys and eyes glued to the screen. “Fuck,” he sighed into one palm.
“What’s the matter?” Corey asked.
Zulu pulled his hand from his face, but it was Emory he stared at with big brown eyes full of fright, reminiscent of how Emory used to regard Ivan as a boy. He recognized something of hisyounger self in Zulu—a Latino kid grown up all wrong and rising fast in the underworld.
“His phone is off,” Zulu said. “I can’t get anything from it. I could try other things, but that’ll take time.”
They didn’t have time. Emory could rail against reality and torpedo morale, but to what end?
He squatted in front of Zulu. “What’s your real name?”
“Sam.”
Emory rested a hand on his shoulder and gentled his voice. “Sam, you gotta keep trying. That’s all I need from you. Just keep trying. I know you can do it.”
“You got this, baby!” Pete shouted from behind Emory.
Zulu broke with a smile and set in with a flurry of keystrokes. By the time the sun disappeared behind jagged hills, the night menaced with a chill, and the wind whipped around them. The laptop’s dull iridescence illuminated Zulu’s face in a murky glow. He continued the task, but the frequency of taps slowed, and by the way he kept shaking his head, Emory knew they were reaching a dead end. The men knew it too. One by one, each of them slumped against the cars and faded fast as Emory paced in silence.
“Son, it’s been hours,” Liam said, quiet enough the others wouldn’t hear. “We need to regroup. Zulu can keep working. It doesn’t mean you’re giving up. I just think we need to settle for a bit and think through alternatives.”
Defeat battered Emory, and the doubts rolled in dense as fog. For all he knew, Amelia may not even be with Richard. He could’ve handed her off to Ivan and split. Emory meant what he said when they left, though. Days, weeks, months, it didn’t matter how long it took to find her. He’d tear the world apart to get her back. His men must’ve taken it as a hyperbolic declaration born of passion but little resolve. Liam should’ve known better, though.
“I’m not going back without her. I don’t care how long it takes. I’m not leaving her.”
